


Act Natural

by monobuu



Series: Porn Novelist [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alfred is an idiot, Alternate Universe - Human, Arthur is frustrated, Crack, First Time, M/M, Repair Man Trope, Sexual Frustration, Sexy Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 10:50:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7433817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monobuu/pseuds/monobuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Kirkland, porn novelist extraordinaire, is suffering from writer's block. His new muse shows up on his doorstep with an American accent, a mega-watt smile and a tool belt. [originally written for the kink meme]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Arthur Kirkland sat at his desk, fingers poised above the keyboard of his laptop, shoulders slightly hunched to see the screen. The look on his face was incredibly focused, and every now and again he'd stick his tongue out the corner of his mouth in concentration. He'd been at it for about three hours now, and his tea sat cooling to his right, nearly untouched as Arthur threw himself into his work.  
  
The only problem was Arthur's fingers hadn't actually _moved_ in those three hours and the only thing that was on the open document in front of him was a blinking cursor. Arthur watched the cursor with narrowed eyes, hating it with a fury, wishing from the very depths of his soul that he could stop every one of its stupid, mocking blinks. All he had to do was _type something_ , but he couldn't for the life of him think of anything.  
  
He'd written half a page that morning, read over it and deleted it for being crap. Utter crap.  
  
He narrowed his eyes even more, his fingers twitching over the keyboard as he tried to force his brain to squeeze out one sentence, anything really, that he could start with. All he needed was one, and then he could build and build off of it, and hopefully come out with something halfway decent.  
  
But his brain seemed to be absent at the moment, likely taking a vacation with Arthur's liver, living it up and having a grand old time somewhere and _not_ giving Arthur ideas. Well, fuck them. He couldn't be faulted for drinking them into a coma, those fucking blue drinks didn't even taste like alcohol.  
  
Arthur let his head fall to the desk, smashing the keyboard against his forehead in the hopes that maybe, miraculously, it would create a sentence, just _one bloody sentence_ that he could work with. But when he raised his head again, it was to see that the page was filled with absolute nonsense. His forehead, directly connected to his brain as it was, had failed to even write a proper word.  
  
“Aaah!” Arthur yelled, picking up a pencil holder that was lying close by and chucking it at the wall with all his might.  
  
Then he watched as, instead of hitting the wall with a dull thump, the pencil holder hit the window about five feet to the left of where Arthur had aimed. It hit with a tinny sort of cracking sound and Arthur watched in complete horror as a spiderweb of small cracks spread over the glass and it broke, falling in tiny pieces to his hardwood floor, pencils and pens scattered amongst the glass.  
  
Well. He'd never been very good at sports. He made a living writing gay porn, for fuck's sake.  
  
“Oh, bloody hell,” Arthur mumbled, closing his eyes and bringing his hand up to rub at the bridge of his nose. Now he was going to have to call someone to fix it and have some behemoth of a man who stank and likely had no credentials tromping around his precious office.  
  
“Just fucking peachy,” he said and headed downstairs to his phone.  
  
x o x  
  
The town in which Arthur dwelled would never be considered a hub of...anything. It was small, very rural and that's just how Arthur liked it. It was peaceful in the country, it allowed him to think better and as long as he could get internet, than he could work.  
  
Unfortunately living in the sticks also meant that when you needed help, there was very little option as to who you could call. There was a business on the far side of the town, a sort of fix-all establishment that did all sorts of things, carpentry, plumbing, electrics, cars. Anything you needed help with, one of their guys was enough of a professional in it that he could maybe not fuck it up worse than you had. And that was really your only option.  
  
So when Arthur had called them, told them about his sad, broken window, they'd happily told him it would be no problem. Arthur had his doubts, but when he went to let the repairman in the next day, he was not met with an overweight, smelly construction worker who had plumber's crack without even bending over. Instead, he opened the door to reveal a tall man with blond hair and an impressive amount of muscle showing through his t-shirt. A tool belt hung around his waist, dragging his work jeans down just enough for a bit of skin to peak through. Arthur dragged his eyes back to the man's face so he could greet him properly, but was sidetracked once again when he saw the man's bright blue eyes and his mind went off into another daydream.  
  
“Mr. Kirkland?” the man asked.  
  
Arthur snapped out of it with only a slight blush staining his cheeks. He coughed. “Ah, yes, that's me.”  
  
“I'm Alfred, and I'm here for your window,” the man said easily, smile bright beneath the sunshine of his hair. His accent was American. It was fucking sexy as hell.  
  
“Right,” Arthur said belatedly. They stood there awkwardly for a moment, Arthur wondering what kind of shampoo Alfred used and how he managed to keep his skin so smooth and deliciously tanned and – the man chuckled a bit.  
  
“I need to see the window that needs fixing before I can get my stuff, so...” he trailed off, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans _(which dragged them down even more, the slope of his hip bone just beginning to peak out – not that Arthur noticed or anything)_ and shrugging his shoulders up near his chin as he smiled, giving the impression that he was asking Arthur a really big favor, instead of making him look like a complete dunce.  
  
“Oh, yes, I- of course you- well, I shou- uhm, yes,” Arthur said, words tumbling from his brain too fast for his mouth to make sense of them. Wordsmith. Hah.  
  
“Right this way,” he managed finally, face beat red as he headed for his office. When they reached the stairs, he briefly considered asking Alfred to lead the way, if only so that he could admire the man's arse on the way up. But he couldn't think of a logical reason why Alfred would need to precede him up the stairs and so gave up on the idea with no small amount of disappointment. Once they reached his office, Arthur gestured to the window and watched as Alfred walked over, inspecting the broken glass that littered the floor and then the window itself.  
  
Arthur cursed himself for not cleaning it up beforehand; he must look like a completely useless airhead right now. “Oh, forgive me, I forgot to clean the glass up, I'll go get-”  
  
“No, no,” Alfred said, holding up his hand. “I don't want you to hurt yourself. I'll do it, I've got gloves.”  
  
Arthur blushed even more, if that were possible. He raised his hands to his cheeks to try and cool them while Alfred still had his back to him.  
  
“I think I know what I need,” Alfred said finally, turning to look at Arthur. Arthur jerked his hands back down to his sides, where they stayed awkwardly since he couldn't for the life of him figure out where to _put them_. “How'd you break it?”  
  
“Uh,” Arthur said, taken slightly off guard. His mind was clearly enjoying its vacation quite thoroughly. Bloody, fucking wanker. “A bird.”  
  
“Huh,” Alfred said, and Arthur felt like a complete idiot. “Poor bird.”  
  
With that, Alfred walked past him and down the stairs to wherever he kept his tools and whatnot, his truck, most likely. Arthur sagged against the wall for a moment, fanning his face. Dear lord, that man was sex on legs. It was like the ancient gods had given birth to him themselves, creating one perfectly proportioned and sculpted male in their magnificent image, and then graciously gave that being unto man, who were perhaps underserving of such a wonderful gift, but who would nonetheless give their thanks through worship of his-  
  
Well shit. That was pretty fucking good.  
  
Arthur's eyes darted to his computer and sidled over to it slowly, glancing back through the door as his hand reached out to touch the shiny surface of his laptop. The repair man was nowhere in sight and Arthur turned back to his computer, gently beginning to pry it open and-  
  
“You don't have to stay here,” Alfred said suddenly from right beside him. Arthur jumped at the voice and turned to find the American grinning at him. “If you got other stuff to do, you can just leave me to it. Won't take but a jiff.”  
  
Alfred walked over to the window and set down the large pane of glass he'd brought with him, along with some other tools. Arthur watched as he bent to brush the broken glass into a small dustpan, using his gloved fingers to get all the tiny pieces. Arthur's gaze went to the man's jean-clad backside, admiring the shape and drinking in that little bit of smooth, tanned skin just above the hem like other men might a good wine, all the while wondering what the hell a 'jiff' was.  
  
“What?” Alfred asked, turning to regard him.  
  
Oh. He'd said that out loud. Dammit.  
  
“Nothing,” Arthur said hurriedly. “I'll just, ah, I have to do something.”  
  
“Okay,” Alfred said easily, turning back to the task at hand.  
  
“On the computer,” Arthur continued, and Alfred turned to him once more, eyebrows raised in an expression that clearly said, _I was just trying to be nice, please don't tell me your life story or show me family pictures or something creepy like that._  
  
Seriously, where the fuck was his brain today?  
  
Arthur waited until Alfred was turned to his task once more, then reached out and opened his computer quickly. The blank page from yesterday was still there, with that garbled junk his forehead had typed out mocking him. He viciously tapped the delete key, smirking as the last of it was wiped from the page, never to return. Then he glanced at his repairman, who had finished cleaning the glass shards and was now removing what was left of the window from the frame. It displayed his arm muscles very clearly, the tanned skin of his forearms shifting in a tantalizing show of power as he worked at tugging the remaining glass free. Arthur imagined those hands involved in a different sort of task, applying that strength and dexterity to mapping the skin of his lover, brushing long fingers across a sensitive nipple before trailing it down to firmly take hold of-  
  
Arthur licked his lips and bent over his computer, typing furiously as sentence after sentence flowed from his mind, his fingers moving rapidly as he tried to keep up with his thoughts, tried to put to paper _(or computer, rather)_ what his mind kept envisioning every time he glanced at those muscled arms, that toned backside beneath just-loose-enough denim and that smile that shined as bright as the sun coming in through his stupid, beautiful broken window.  
  
He'd gotten seven pages written by the time Alfred was finished, but he was so absorbed in his work that he didn't notice when the repairman began packing up all his tools, cleaning up any stray bit of glass that he missed and generally preparing to leave. Arthur barely even registered the looming shadow of someone standing just behind him, and definitely forgot that what he was writing on his screen was potentially fatally embarrassing.  
  
“Turgid cock, huh?” Alfred said into the silence.  
  
Arthur was startled badly, fingers spasming so that the last half of his sentence ended in _dsf;io;knf._ He glanced up at Alfred, saw that he was reading what Arthur had written and hastily tried to cover up the screen, as if the damage hadn't already been done. Thank god Arthur hadn't used the man's actual name, or it could have been – what was he talking about!? The hot repairman had discovered that Arthur was writing _porn_. If he got out of this with any sort of dignity intact it would be a god damned miracle.  
  
“I like that; sometimes authors find really good synonyms for dicks, you know,” Alfred continued, cocking his hip to one side and looking up, thinking. “I mean, a lot of times you get really weird ones, like _quivering member_ , or oh! Oh! The one I hate the most is when they call it 'meat,' like I really want to associate someone's cock with a delicious steak, or something. I don't know, it just seems awkward to me. I mean, there's plenty of other things to call a penis, right? Haha, but I'm no writer.”  
  
Arthur's brain, which had recently returned from its vacation to gape at Alfred right alongside Arthur, promptly imploded.  
  
The man walked over to Arthur's bookshelf, and all the Englishman could do was silently plea that he _leave the porn section alone, ignore it, ignore it!_ But as luck would have it, it was the first section Alfred went to. He pulled a couple titles out and hummed with something akin to, well. Arthur's brain was still recovering, but it sounded, ridiculous as the idea may be, like a healthy amount of _interest_.  
  
“So I guess you wrote some of these?” Alfred asked, turning to give Arthur a grin. “I wonder if I've read any of yours~” he half sang, waggling his eyebrows.  
  
Arthur's brain began dribbling out his ears.  
  
“I read a lot of stuff from Japan,” Alfred continued easily, thumbing through a couple more titles as he spoke. “My friend buys a bunch of it online, it's called _yaoi_. I don't really watch the shows they belong to, but some of those Japanese authors have some heavy duty kinks.” Alfred laughed.  
  
All Arthur could come up with was, “You read Japanese?” Yeah, that was good. Act like you're interested in the man intellectually and not just magically inspired by the thought of his dick. Just leave the porn out of the conversation entirely.  
  
“Oh yeah,” Alfred said, going to pick up the pile of tools he'd set down near Arthur's desk. “I can read a bunch of different languages. French smut can get pretty intense too; those guys really know how to get dirty, you know. I mean, they did come up with the phrase _menage a trois_ , after all. Which makes me wonder if you could change it up sometimes, call it a _menage a sept_ or something, haha.”  
  
That hadn't worked. That hadn't worked _at all._ The logical side of Arthur's brain wibbled and then just shut down altogether in the face of this man's unwavering ability to bring any topic Arthur threw at him right back to porn. _Seven people? My god, that sounded fucking hot-!_  
  
“Anyway, I'll send you the bill sometime in the next couple days. You can either come buy and pay in person, or send a check to us in the mail, doesn't matter.”  
  
Alfred headed for the door while Arthur was still struggling to digest the abrupt turn from porn to billing, and the fact that the man was well versed in Arthur's genre of choice. Good lord, the man read _porn_. A lot of porn. _Gay_ porn.  
  
“Well, have a nice day, Mr. Kirkland!” Alfred said, giving Arthur a wink over his shoulder before waving his hand and disappearing from sight.  
  
Arthur heard the heavy steps of his work boots going down the stairs, across the entryway and then heard the slam of the door as the man left. If he strained his ears, he could even hear the start of the truck's engine and the roar of it driving down the street.  
  
After another few moments, Arthur snapped out of it.  
  
“He's gay,” Arthur muttered, glancing around rapidly, mind racing. “The fucking repairman is fucking hot as hell and he's _gay_!”  
  
A pause.  
  
“I need to break something else.”  
  
x o x  
  
Of course, it never occurred to Arthur that the repair shop that Alfred worked for might, in fact, have multiple men in their employ and that even if he _did_ happen to accidentally flush a cherry bomb down his toilet, he wouldn't necessarily be graced by the sight of Alfred's glorious arse bent over as he attempted to fix the ensuing disaster.  
  
Because when he went to answer the door, fully prepared to laughingly blame his broken toilet on the incredible and persisting nuisance that was his nephew, _(he really did have a nephew, by the way; his name was Peter and he was fucking annoying as hell, so this fib wasn't a stretch. Not by a long shot.)_ he was sadly not greeted by shining blue eye, a killer smile, delectable muscles barely contained by a thin t-shirt, tanned skin that glistened in the sun - well. You get the idea.  
  
It was actually, and rather depressingly, the exact opposite. This man had chocolate brown eyes and an intense scowl that twisted his mouth so viciously that Arthur wondered if the man even knew _how_ to smile. The man stood there, arms crossed, foot tapping in obvious impatience.  
  
“Kirkland?” he asked rudely, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“Yes?” Arthur asked, unimpressed.  
  
“Lovino Vargas,” he said, “I'm your repairman.”  
  
There was a long pause, wherein Mr. Vargas managed to sink his brows even further into a truly frightening scowl, one that might even outdo Arthur's own impressive glare, and the Englishman tried to decide whether or not it was acceptable to turn the man away based purely on the fact that his arse didn't inspire poetry. Arthur liked to imagine he wasn't that big of a dick, though, despite his tendency to write about them _(oh fuck, that pun was so_ bad _it wasn't even worth laughing at in his sad, sad excuse for a brain right now)_ and so he opened the door further.  
  
“Lovely,” Arthur said, deadpan, and led the man to the toilet that sorely needed to be fixed. He opened the door and the man just stood there, staring at the broken porcelain for long moments before looking at Arthur.  
  
“What the fuck did you do?” he asked, frowning, and Arthur could just barely detect a hint of Italian in his accent, peeking out through his cussing.  
  
“My nephew flushed a cherry bomb down the toilet,” Arthur explained, then turned. “Just fix it.”  
  
Arthur spent the next three hours sitting at his kitchen table, listening to the chorus of profanity that drifted down the stairs from where Lovino was working on repairing his toilet. After a while, it had become almost calming and Arthur imagined himself to be in some sort of peaceful internal garden of cussing zen.  
  
Unfortunately, it had remained as inspiring as fuck all throughout the whole three hours and his computer sat in front of him, nothing written but those handful of pages he'd managed to write during the time it'd taken for Alfred to fix his window. All he'd managed to do in regards to his story was reread it, fix a few spelling and grammatical errors and, in the process, turn himself on from the images he'd painted of his incredibly sexy, _absent_ repairman. It had actually been the reasoning behind such a destructive fuck-up as throwing a firecracker down his toilet. The more time it took to fix, Arthur had reasoned, the more time that blessedly attractive American could stay in his house.  
  
Alfred seemed to be his newly found, and greatly appreciated, muse. When he was around the American, prose came flowing through his mind as easily as they had when he'd first started writing, as if his brain had bee born to create beautiful works of written wonder that would astound, and hopefully arouse, his chosen audience. He'd tried sitting in the hallway outside where Lovino was working, using the excuse that Arthur didn't exactly trust the Italian to fix it properly _(which wasn't entirely untrue)_ , with his computer propped on his legs, but his brain had refused to take the, not unpleasant, sight of the Italian's own impressive figure as inspiration for his most recent endeavor into the world of porn.  
  
No Alfred, no porn. Or so it seemed.  
  
Arthur resolutely denied himself the satisfaction of banging his head against the wall.  
  
He had eventually given up entirely and retreated to the kitchen, where he'd sat in uninspired boredom for the rest of the substantial time it had taken Lovino to fix his toilet. One thing his self-imposed writing exile _had_ managed to get him was an entirely villainous and incredibly pleasing plan of action for the following day, wherein he would take care of his little problem of not having Alfred available to work _and_ get glorious revenge at the same time _(even though it hadn't really been Lovino's fault that he'd been chosen to fix Arthur's toilet instead of Alfred. Arthur didn't care)_. He just needed to know one little thing before his current repairman left.  
  
“Mr. Vargas,” Arthur called as the man came down the stairs with his tools and whatnot gathered, clearly intent on leaving as quickly as possible.  
  
“I'll send you the bill tomorrow,” he said quickly, heading for the door.  
  
“How many repairmen does your company employ?” Arthur continued, ignoring the Italian's attempt to leave.  
  
“What?” Lovino asked, confused. He seemed to think about it for a moment, then said, “Just me and Alfred, now that Feliciano moved in with his boyfriend and can't be fucked to go to work just because that potato-loving freak makes bank at his stupid job. I mean, who'd have fucking thought porn stars would make that much money? And _that guy_ , who wants to watch a super-buff German whip the shit out of anyone, anyway? I think the fucker's got some serious control issues, that's what I think.”  
  
Arthur blinked. He couldn't decide if that was way, _way_ too much information to be hearing from his local repairman... or an incredibly hot idea for his next novel.  
  
“Why?” Lovino asked, completely unaware that if Arthur hadn't written gay porn for a living, he would likely be entirely too embarrassed by that little tirade to even speak coherently.  
  
But given that the Englishman _was_ , in fact, a porn enthusiast, he merely shrugged. “No reason,” he said, and opened the door for Lovino to leave through.  
  
x o x  
  
_“Good morning, Dick's Repair, how may I help you?”_  
  
“Hi, my name is Antonio Carriedo; I'm Spanish and really stupid and broke my oven, can you send someone to fix it?”  
  
_“Ahah...sure, no problem, I can send someone over this afternoon if you'd like.”_  
  
“That would be splendid, and could I please ask that you send Mr. Vargas? I've worked with him before.”  
  
_“No problem, sir.”_  
  
“Excellent,” Arthur said, smile widening on his face. He listed off the address of his fellow writer and assured the man on the phone that he was writing down the time so he wouldn't forget to be home. Antonio rarely went out, so Arthur had no doubt that he'd be home when the lovely Italian showed up. He had a thing for Italians.  
  
Antonio would either get lucky and find new inspiration for his own writing in the profane mouth of the feisty Italian and shower Arthur in thanks for being such a good friend, or he'd get punched in the balls for groping a complete stranger.  
  
All things considered, it was a win-win for Arthur.


	2. Chapter 2

  
“Hey, Mr. Kirkland,” Alfred said as he opened his door, smiling and hitching up his pants. Arthur noticed, with no small amount of pleasure, that the man had forgotten to wear an actual belt beneath his tool belt and his pants were struggling to stay high enough to be decent. Lovely.  
  
Arthur sent a silent thanks to the gods of porn, his mind already spinning beautifully detailed poetry that worshiped that small amount of hip and muscle that was on display before him. He'd been wondrously correct in assuming that, with Mr. Vargas busy fixing the Spaniard's unbroken oven, Alfred was the only one available to come fix Arthur's new problem.  
  
“Alfred, thank you for coming,” Arthur murmured, and he meant it. His fingers were actually _twitching_ in want for his laptop keyboard, impatient to continue the wonderful story that had begun to unfold with Alfred's last visit.   
  
“I heard about your nephew,” the American said with a grin. “I've got a couple cousins back home who really like to explode things; you'd think they had some sort of superpower for it or something.”  
  
Arthur made a great and valiant effort not to wince at the American's grammar and smiled as he led the man to the staircase. “Yes, Peter can be quite the nuisance when he puts his mind to it,” Arthur agreed, not feeling any sense of remorse for blaming his troublesome nephew for something he hadn't actually done. He'd babysat the little shit enough times, and the endless crap Arthur put up with when he was around – well. The kid owed him. Big time.  
  
“Well, I'm glad Lovino could help you out,” Alfred said, smiling. “He's busy today though, somebody actually _requested_ him, haha!”   
  
“Is that so?” Arthur asked, glad Alfred couldn't see his face as they finally approached his newly broken appliance. Arthur hadn't ever been good at poker.  
  
“So this is the one, huh?” Alfred asked, scooting in past Arthur so that he could take a good look at the shower-head that was hanging pathetically out of the tiled wall of his shower. Arthur imagined a small section of the wall would need to be redone and perhaps a little plumbing as well, and he hoped it would take a long, long time.  
  
“How did this happen?” the American asked, lifting the shower-head gently and examining the wall it hung from.  
  
“I was cleaning the tiles and I slipped off the stool I was standing on,” Arthur explained. “I grabbed onto the shower-head so I wouldn't fall and ripped it out.”  
  
And that was actually pretty much a true statement. If you took out _'I was cleaning the tiles and I slipped off the stool I was standing on'_ and _'so I wouldn't fall,'_ it was a completely accurate description of what had happened.  
  
Alfred hummed and glanced his way. “You weren't hurt, were you?”  
  
Arthur felt a blush spreading across his cheeks. He had, in fact, gotten hurt. The abrupt loosening of the shower-head had taken him by surprise and he'd fallen, bruising his hip. Alfred's concern was touching and a little arousing, truth be told, and Arthur definitely wouldn't mind milking his injury for all it was worth in an effort to get the American to take care of him.   
  
But he had work to do. Porn to write and whatnot. And it wouldn't get written if Arthur was too busy enjoying those strong, dexterous fingers as they soothed cooling balm over his viciously, viciously bruised hip, trailing up his side and across his bared chest as blue eyes became entranced by the lovely and pale expanse of his bared and shivering body. And then-  
  
“Mr. Kirkland?” Alfred asked.  
  
Arthur snapped out of it, resisting the urge to check if he'd been drooling. He raised his eyebrows. “Pardon? I was lost in thought,” he said. _Lost in the gutter, more like._  
  
Alfred smiled indulgently and Arthur marveled at his patience. “I think I'm gonna have to redo some of your wall, so unless you have tiles left over from when you did it...”  
  
“Oh, I might, actually,” Arthur murmured, mind turning to all the boxes he'd stored in his attic. He'd redone his shower recently, within a couple of years, and he probably had the extra tiles somewhere up there.   
  
“Follow me?” he asked the American, “I might need a little help.” _I might want to make you do something to show off your amazing arse._  
  
“Sure,” Alfred chirped and followed Arthur into the hallway where a small string hung from the ceiling. He stopped and pointed at it.  
  
“That leads to the attic, which is likely where they are,” he explained, then waited in excitement as Alfred stepped up to the task of pulling down the small staircase that was hidden within the ceiling.  
  
The American stretched himself up, barely able to reach the string himself without something to give him more height. Arthur was less concerned with his ability to reach the string, however, and much more interested _(riveted, really)_ at the truly amazing thing the American's pants did when Alfred's body was stretched out to its fullest, hands unconcerned with keeping his loose jeans planted firmly on his hips. They slid down, the stretch beginning what the heavy tool belt happily took over, tugging the hem of his jeans down until Arthur could tell, without a doubt, that the American was not wearing anything underneath.   
  
His hips bones were in stark relief against the slim, muscled plain of his lower abdomen, his shirt rising just high enough to catch a glimpse of the man's navel. The jeans sagged even lower when Alfred jumped just slightly to try and grab at the string and Arthur's eyes went half mast when the trail of hair leading to his sex came into view, enticing the eye to follow it into the shadows that surely hid a powerful set of thighs that framed a gorgeously sized and wonderfully full co-  
  
“Alright!” Alfred cheered as he finally managed to get his fingers around the string and tug, bringing the staircase carefully down and, sadly, ending his stretch so that his shirt fell back down around the wonderful sight that Arthur had been so thoroughly enjoying.  
  
Fuck. He needed to get to his computer. He hoped these damn tiles weren't hard to find.  
  
Arthur smiled at the clearly happy American as he stood proudly before the fully descended staircase and led the way into the attic, eyes roving around the various stacks of boxes as he tried to remember where he might have put them. His eyes found a box with 'tiles' written across the top and gave himself a mental pat on the back at his organizational and labeling skills. He dragged the box over to where Alfred had popped his head up and opened it up, happy to find what they'd been looking for.  
  
“How many do you think you'll need?” Arthur asked, tipping the box slightly _(very slightly, the damn things were heavy)_ so that Alfred could peer inside. The American frowned.  
  
“How heavy is it?” he asked instead, taking the box from Arthur's hands and lifting it experimentally. Arthur's eyes trailed down to the muscles visible just beneath the sleeves of his shirt and took a deep breath to keep from biting his lip at the sight.  
  
“Not that heavy,” Alfred concluded. “I'll just take the whole box, we can put back what I don't use, yeah?” he asked, smiling as he backed down the stairs carefully.  
  
“Sure,” Arthur echoed, following him down and back to his beautiful broken shower.  
  
“I think that's all I need,” Alfred said after setting the box down. “If you got stuff to do, you don't have to stick around.”  
  
Arthur gave a terse nod and practically ran to where he'd set his computer up in the neighboring room, his bedroom, to be exact, and opened up his previous document. His fingers started typing rapidly, trying to keep up with his mind as it dove into images and fantasies of Alfred working on his shower. The broken shower-head was pretty high up, high enough that Arthur had actually had to bring in a stool so that he could get enough leverage to break it, and he could just imagine Alfred reaching up with that lean figure of his, with those damn, beautiful jeans that were much too loose to be appropriate work attire, repairman or not, and the wonderful view he would be afforded as he stretched once more.   
  
And as he turned to work on his project, the American would surely turn his backside toward the doorway, allowing anyone standing in the hallway a gorgeous view of his backside, the line of his spine descending gracefully into the lowered hem of his jeans, framed on either side by those adorably sexy indents Arthur just knew the American would have on either side of his lower back. Those would, in turn, lead the eye to the rounded skin that was the beginning of Alfred's firm backside, clad in denim but nonetheless shapely as his powerful legs kept him steady as he worked.  
  
Arthur stuck his tongue out slightly in concentration, the click of his keyboard a harmonizing melody to the pounding in the next room.  
  
x o x  
  
After a couple of hours, Alfred had fixed his shower and Arthur had gotten a solid chunk of writing done that he was actually satisfied with. As Arthur finished up the few paragraphs left in his current chapter, he heard the sounds of Alfred tinkering around with things next door. After a while, he heard a victorious yell, followed by the sound of water and a surprised shriek. Arther frowned and closed his laptop before darting out into the hall and looking in through the doorway at his repairman.  
  
His heart almost short circuited, and he was fairly sure his brain shut down for a good five seconds, when he saw what exactly had made Alfred shriek.   
  
The man was standing in the shower that he had been working on for the better part of the afternoon, and by the looks of things, he'd succeeded in fixing it. While the shower wasn't running currently, it was clear that he had tested it to make sure he'd done everything properly and it was _also_ quite clear that he hadn't thought to step _out of the shower_ before doing so.  
  
Alfred was now dripping wet, water trailing in rivulets down his face as he turned to look at his employer. His glasses had droplets on their lenses and he was squinting through them as a result. His shirt had taken the brunt of it and clung to him like a second skin, making the muscles of his chest stand out in sharp lines of dark grey and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. His jeans were still low on his hips, sagging with the weight of the tool belt and clinging to his hips as water slowly soaked the thick fabric as it ran down his chest.   
  
The man was a fucking wet dream. Oh yeah. Word. _Smith._   
  
“Haha,” the American laughed, holding out his arms in an 'oops, I guess I did something silly, but I'm so cute you'll probably forgive me' sort of gesture. “I guess I wasn't thinking.”  
  
There was a pause.  
  
Arthur let an appreciative smile spread slowly across his face. “You should probably take those wet things off, I wouldn't want you to catch a cold.”  
  
“You're right,” Alfred said, glancing at himself. Then he quickly tugged his shirt over his head, shaking his head as it broke free of the neckline so that his hair splattered droplets of water everywhere. The American grinned, threw the shirt into the bottom of the shower and Arthur felt heat beginning to pool rapidly in his cock as Alfred proceeded to take off his tool belt, dropping that more carefully to the floor.  
  
The American glanced up. “Uh, could you...turn around or something?”  
  
Arthur smirked. “No.”  
  
“Oh,” Alfred said, confused. When Arthur moved further into the room, the implication seemed to dawn on him. “ _Oh._ ”  
  
“Yeah,” Arthur whispered, hands going to Alfred's jeans in an attempt to hurry things along, fingers grasping at the wet fabric as he popped the button and slowly pulled down the zipper, mindful of the fact that Alfred wasn't wearing anything underneath.  
  
Arthur's lips found Alfred's neck and he made slow work of tasting every inch of skin his tongue could reach, taking the lobe of an ear into his mouth and sucking as he felt Alfred's breathing shutter out in a shaky exhale. Those strong hands came up to rest gently on Arthur's hips and the Englishman rewarded Alfred with a slow lick up the underside of his jaw.  
  
“Ah,” the American whispered as Arthur finally freed the wet denim from the man's hips, pushing it down with stubborn tugs as it stuck to equally damp skin. When they were down far enough, Arthur took hold of the American's cock and gave it a firm stroke, noting with a small hum of pleasure that the man was already half hard.  
  
“Mr. Kirkland,” Alfred stuttered out, fingers tightening on Arthur's hips. “P-please...”  
  
“Call me Arthur,” the Englishman murmured against the American's cheek, pressing his nose into the skin for a long moment, waiting.  
  
“Ar-Arthur,” Alfred managed and Arthur rewarded him with an abrupt kiss, hand leaving Alfred's cock entirely so that he could pull the man's hips firmly against his. The resulting gasp gave Arthur the opportunity to deepen the kiss, and he thrust his tongue into Alfred's mouth, exploring anything he could touch, smooth teeth, the ridges on the roof of his mouth, before taking Alfred's tongue into his own mouth and sucking lightly. They broke apart and Arthur breathed heavily against Alfred's kiss-swollen lips as he ground his own hardening erection into his repairman.  
  
“I believe payment is in order,” Arthur said, opening his eyes and smirking up into Alfred's confused face. It seemed the American was rapidly loosing the ability to make sense of anything Arthur said, which stroked more than the Englishman's ego. He closed his eyes and made his next thrust long and drawn out.  
  
Alfred moaned, breath coming in pants. “I, uh, haven't cal-cal-cu _lated_ your ex-e-expendi _turesholygod,_ ” Alfred whined, head leaning back as Arthur let his hand sneak down to grab at the American's arse. “Yet,” Alfred finished.  
  
“That's quite all right,” Arthur said smoothly. “This is just a bonus,” he whispered, before giving Alfred's lips one last kiss and dropping down to his knees.   
  
“Oh shit,” Alfred said, moving his hands to rest on top of Arthur's head, shaking slightly in what Arthur was sure was anticipation.   
  
Arthur took a moment to enjoy the sight of Alfred's cock, hard, flushed with excitement and already leaking as he let a warm breath wash over the head. He bent down to run his tongue from base to tip, swiping his tongue across the slit to wash it of any precum before he took just the head into his mouth. He sucked lightly as his hands trailed up Alfred's thighs, one dipping in between his legs to rub at his perineum before cupping his fingers around the smooth skin of his balls, rolling them as his mouth descended further, his tongue stroked harder.   
  
Arthur felt fingers tighten in his hair and hummed around Alfred's cock, enjoying the tug as Alfred slowly lost control. He could hear the man gasping for air and panting Arthur's name, and the Englishman let his tongue flick across the head of Alfred's cock as he backed off almost completely, laying open-mouthed kisses and heated licks along the length just to hear the heavy sigh fall from those gorgeous lips, to hear that frustrated huff.  
  
“God, Arthur,” Alfred panted. “Please, just-just-”  
  
Arthur trailed his tongue back up to the tip, payed particular attention to the slit for a few long moments before he opened his mouth and took as much of Alfred's cock as he could, tongue working furiously, cheeks hollowing as he sucked Alfred off. His hand came up to stroke what he couldn't fit in his mouth, meeting his lips as he worked both in tandem. Alfred began to lose himself to the sensations and Arthur could feel him beginning to thrust his hips forward as he neared his peak.  
  
It didn't take long after that and Alfred's fingers were pulling almost painfully on his hair and Arthur's mouth was filled with the bitter taste of Alfred's release. He swallowed as much as he could, continuing to suck until he felt Alfred grow soft in his mouth. He let Alfred slide slowly from his mouth and panted himself, catching his breath as Alfred bent down to look him in the eyes.   
  
“That was amazing,” Alfred said, and Arthur enjoyed that sated, happy look that was spread softly across the American's face. He wanted to wake up to that look every morning, perhaps frame the image of it and bottle up the way it made him all fluttery and warm inside, place it on his shelf to admire because it was such a _nice_ feeling that he never wanted to lose it. Those blue, blue eyes looking at him like he was the only thing in the world, those fingers trailing across his cheek, gently gathering the spend he hadn't managed to swallow on his fingers before licking it clean himself. Arthur felt his own cock twitch at the sight and closed his eyes as Alfred's hand returned to the Englishman's cheek, running his calloused palm across it slowly before slapping it gently. Twice.  
  
Arthur frowned and the next slap was a little harder, startling him into opening his eyes.   
  
What greeted him was not exactly what he'd been expecting. The American hovering above him was clearly worried, which Arthur both resented and appreciated, despite the difficulty of sorting through that particular contradiction. But rather than being completely naked, as Arthur's memory clearly told him he should be after receiving an amazing blow job from Arthur himself, the man was fully clothed, which meant...  
  
Oh god. Had he-?  
  
“Oh thank god,” Alfred said, a look of relief flitting across his face as he smiled slightly. “You spaced out there for a while and then you just dropped. Are you okay?”  
  
It wasn't-? That hadn't actually-? That was a fantasy? His bloody, fucking _imagination!?_  
  
“Seriously,” Alfred continued, unaware of Arthur's inner turmoil _(and turmoil was putting it lightly, it was more like an internal meltdown, he was so fucking embarrassed)_. “You said, 'Call me Arthur' and then FOOM, down you went. And then you said something about a bonus, but I didn't really catch that.”  
  
And he'd fainted. He'd _lost consciousness_ because of a _fantasy_.  
  
“Sorry I didn't catch you,” Alfred finished. “It happened kinda fast.”  
  
Arthur's face was about to explode, he was sure, if only from the mere ferocity of his blush. His embarrassment was like a physical thing right now, sitting beside him and poking him in the face, as if to point out how much of a _complete loser_ he was. He had- oh god, he didn't even want to say it in his sad, pathetic excuse for a brain. He'd _molested_ the repairman in his head, seduced him and sucked the man off in an incredibly dominating way and he didn't even fucking know _how_ to give a blow job!  
  
If ever there was a time for the ground to open up and swallow him into the deep, fiery pits of hell that he was surely destined for after that last novel he'd written, now would be that time.  
  
“Hey, say something,” Alfred said. “You're freaking me out.”  
  
Arthur took a moment to collect his scattered thoughts - _blow jobs were fucking sexy, molestation less so, good thing he'd chosen hardwood flooring over tiles, repairmen should come with a warning, he needed a cold shower_ \- and cleared his throat before addressing Alfred.  
  
“Apologies,” Arthur murmured, and he was incredibly pleased that he'd managed to make it sound halfway normal. He stood gingerly, giving a nod of thanks to the American as he offered support but unwilling to lean too heavily against that warm, inviting body, lest Alfred notice that Arthur was painfully hard from his little detour into fantasy land. “I've been working all afternoon on my computer, I think I-”  
  
“Writing porn?” Alfred asked with a smile and a perky tone to his voice.   
  
Arthur almost fell again. Would have if Alfred hadn't been so close. The man was bad for his health.  
  
“I was working on my newest novel,” Arthur responded, avoiding the topic of smut without lying. Alfred didn't seem to mind the diversion. Either that or it had flown completely over his head.  
  
“What's it about?” he asked, going to pick up his supplies. The man was _oblivious_ to social protocol and Arthur was completely and entirely sure that it would, eventually, be the death of him.   
  
Instead of answering, Arthur let his eyes trail over Alfred's clothes, wet and clinging to his body, making small puddles wherever he went in the small room. At least that part hadn't been his imagination. “You're wet,” he said, changing the topic entirely.  
  
“Oh,” the American murmured, then raised a hand to scratch at the back of his head. “I forgot to get out of the way when the shower turned on.”  
  
“You're making a mess,” Arthur said primly, though what he actually meant by that was _you're distracting the hell out of me, I can practically fucking see your six pack, and you need to stop it._ “Get out of those clothes and I'll try and find you something that will fit.  
  
“Oh, you don't have to-”  
  
“You're not tromping around my house in wet clothes,” Arthur argued, leaving the room so as to avoid another incident should Alfred suddenly see fit to take Arthur's advice and start shedding clothing.   
  
Arthur was sure that he had something around here that would fit the American. His assistant sometimes stayed over on weekends if they had a deadline to meet or if Arthur needed to be bullied into being productive, and he was about the same size as Alfred. Arthur headed into the spare bedroom and opened the closet, seeing a couple sweatshirts and a pair of jeans; he would just have to apologize to Matthew and offer him a new set. He wouldn't be around for another couple weeks anyway, Arthur would have plenty of time to replace them.  
  
He took the clothes and headed back to where his repairman waited, completely forgetting that he'd asked the man to strip, and knocked twice before swinging the door open. “I think these should-”  
  
“Ah!” Alfred yelled, darting behind the shower curtain quickly.  
  
Quick thinker, that man. Problem was, the curtain was sheer.   
  
Arthur managed an, “Oh fuck,” before he went down again.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Arthur had recovered from his second fall, though he still carried the mental scars from embarrassing himself so far beyond his imagination _(which was substantial, he'd once construed a way for six men to have sex with one another simultaneously)_ that it was difficult to even comprehend how Alfred could still think well of him. But Arthur was nothing if not persistent and he would be damned if he let a silly little thing like dying brain cells and eternal shame keep him from sabotaging another one of his appliances so his sexy, gay repairman could once again walk his gorgeous arse all over Arthur's house.  
  
And, oh god, if he could get the American to work shirtless, he was sure he could die happy. He'd gotten a glimpse the other day and although he'd spent much of that afternoon either ensconced in fantasy or in a dead faint, the image of Alfred's naked body was burned into Arthur's mind like the sun itself had been behind the unveiling of that magnificent body.  
  
Which was actually what spawned his newest plan. It was the middle of August, hot and humid out, and the mere thought of going outside into that heat made Arthur uncomfortably warm.  
  
So he broke his air conditioner.  
  
“How did you manage that?” Alfred asked when Arthur let him in the doorway.  
  
It took a while for Arthur to manage an answer because he was fairly absorbed in watching the hypnotizing sway of Alfred's arse as he walked into the house. Arthur hadn't even shut the door yet, his fingers going slack on the handle as he watched the sweat that had gathered in the small of Alfred's back cling to his shirt, the lines of it across his shoulders staining the fabric of his blue shirt a darker shade. But the American turned around and Arthur snapped out of it, shut the door and cleared his throat.  
  
“I'm not quite sure. It's a window unit,” he explained. His house was old and he hadn't gotten around to updating everything yet. As a result, some of his appliances were older than he was.  
  
“Well, lead the way,” Alfred said with a grin.  
  
Arthur smiled and did just that. He'd broken the thing early that morning, opened all the windows in an attempt to heat his house up as quickly as possible and then suffered through it himself as he baked three batches of scones to add the heat of the oven to his now stifling house. By the time Alfred had showed up Arthur had had to change twice, finally giving up on looking the proper writer and settling on an old short sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans he'd rolled up to just below his knees. There was a constant line of sweat beneath his fringe and he felt that uncomfortable stickiness at the back of his neck that refused to go away no matter how often he swiped a hand at it.  
  
But it was worth it. Oh, it was fucking _worth it._ Alfred hadn't even gotten to work and he was already running the back of his arm across his forehead.   
  
“This is it,” Arthur said, trying to sound miserable and failing. He gave Alfred an embarrassed smile.  
  
The American looked at it for a long moment, idly bringing his arm up to try and swipe his shirt sleeve against his forehead. He frowned, eyes still taking in Arthur's broken air conditioner, then hummed and grabbed the hem of his shirt. He brought it up to wipe at his face, giving Arthur a close up view of his toned stomach, the sharp angle of his hips as they curved from torso to thigh, his adorably sexy navel and that damnable line of soft blond hair that led straight into his jeans.  
  
Alfred dropped his shirt. “What did you do, take a bat to it?”  
  
Arthur's mouth quirked up in a dimwitted smile as he tried to pull his thoughts together after that little show. “Yeah,” he murmured, still caught up in the aftereffects of that tantalizing view of muscle.   
  
Alfred gave him a funny look.  
  
Arthur enjoyed that funny look for a second before his mind replayed the last few moments for him. “I mean-,” he corrected himself, shaking his head abruptly as he felt heat blossom in his cheeks. “No, of course not!”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Alfred said, turning back to the air conditioner. “Well, it looks like it's been through hell, it might take a while to fix.”  
  
Lovely. Absolutely brilliant. Arthur gave himself a mental pat on the back, before he nodded and bit his lip. “Also...” he trailed off.  
  
“Yeah?” Alfred looked up, swiping his sleeve against his cheek. Arthur could see the sweat beading on his forehead, could hear his breathing getting heavier from the heat.   
  
“Uh,” Arthur said, distracted. He'd been about to say something important, he just couldn't remember what it was. Fuck. “Nevermind,” he said lamely and left the room to go grab his laptop.  
  
He brought it back to the living room, where the broken air conditioner was located, explaining that it was the coolest place in the house as an excuse to sit in the same room as Alfred. He set his computer on his coffee table, knowing full well that the heat it radiated would surely make him overheat if he sat it on his lap for an extended period of time. He opened up the document that contained his novel, reread the last couple of paragraphs and glanced up at his repairman, waiting for inspiration to flow from the American's sweaty, hard-working body and into Arthur's waiting fingertips.  
  
It didn't take long.  
  
Alfred was in the process of removing the entire unit from Arthur's window and the muscles of his arms stood out against the afternoon light that shone in through the window as he lifted the heavy peace of equipment up and gently set in on the floor. He heaved a breath out and ran his arm across his forehead in an attempt to clear some of the sweat away, but his arm was almost as damp as his face and he only managed to muss up his fringe, strands of blonde hair sticking to wet skin roughly in the direction that he'd dragged his arm.  
  
The American's glasses began to slide down his nose and he raised a hand to push them back up before switching positions and bending down to look at the front panel of the air conditioner. Arthur could hear metallic sounds of various parts being wiggled and pushed, taken off and set on the ground, but that was only background noise. Arthur was beginning to develop a serious attachment to Alfred's tool belt, an incredibly appreciative attachment, because the thing was ever present when the man came over and it always, _always_ tugged the American's pants down further than their looseness did already.  
  
Today his tool belt hung heavy on one side and as Alfred straightened from his crouch to sit on his heels, the right side of his jeans gave way to allow the small, gentle curve of his backside to peak just above the hem. The American grabbed something from his belt, bent back over, and his shirt rode up a bit, clinging to heated skin as he stretched over the top to see the backside of the air conditioner. Those two dimples on either side of his spine glistened from the sweat left behind by his shirt and Arthur licked his lips as he followed the line of Alfred's back up to his shoulders as they tensed from his work.  
  
He let his eyes trail back down, spending a long moment on that strip of bared skin just above the hem of his jeans before taking in the glorious sight of Alfred's denim-clad arse. The tool belt lent an interesting contrast to the blue of the denim, a dark brown slash sloping downward over curves, tilted to one side and framing strong hips.   
  
Arthur felt his own breathing start to deepen and he turned his attention to his computer screen, fingers already flying over the keys as prose flowed through his mind, providing him with descriptions upon endlessly sexy descriptions of the repairman working so hard a mere five feet away. He was just getting to the build up of this particular story, the set up and plot _(what little it had, anyway)_ already finished during Alfred's previous excursions into fixing Arthur's various appliances. And he was just getting to the good parts, by which Arthur meant _smut_ , when he heard Alfred let out a huff of frustration.  
  
Arthur hid his smile behind his computer screen. He'd been waiting for that ever since Alfred walked through the door. Now all he had to do was sit back and enjoy.  
  
“Hey, Mr. Kirkland?” Alfred called. Arthur got his expression under control, typed out one more adjective for describing that line of muscle that descended from hip to sex, and looked up.  
  
“Call me Arthur,” he said.  
  
“Okay,” Alfred said, shrugging. “It's like, oppressively hot in here, Arthur. I don't even know how you're still wearing pants.”  
  
By which Arthur was sure the man meant _Why aren't you in shorts._ But it didn't matter, the comment went straight to Arthur's cock. Literally, it took all the blood that might have gathered in his cheeks and sent it straight south, and he was so glad the computer was sitting on his lap right now, you _don't even know._ And as a certain part of his anatomy began to rise, his mind began an abrupt and rapid descent into the gutter.  
  
 _Why yes,_ Arthur could say politely. _It is rather hot for trousers, would you mind taking care of that for me?_ And then Alfred would grin that stupid, oblivious grin at him and do just that, sliding the denim down his legs slowly, fingers trailing against heat dampened skin. When the jeans were at his ankles, the American would tug them off, chuck them unceremoniously on the ground and return to Arthur's legs, hands sliding up to curve rough palms against the backs of his calves as he slowly worked Arthur's legs apart. When there was enough room, Alfred would kneel in between them and Arthur's breath would come out in a harsh exhale as he bent over and licked at him through the thin material of his boxers.  
  
Arthur blinked and refocused on the American in front of him. Holy shit. The man hadn't even done anything yet and Arthur was already at risk of losing himself in fantasy.  
  
“Would you mind if I took off my shirt?” Alfred asked, a slight dusting of pink spreading across his nose and cheeks. “I'm practically dying in here.”  
  
Arthur watched him and marveled at how fantastically _endearing_ that blush was. Here he was, writing an erotic novel to the image of Alfred doing all sorts of naughty things to him, had actually passed out from the thought of giving the man a blowjob, and the American was _blushing_ at the thought of taking off his shirt.  
  
There was just something so charming about the idea of a sex god being chaste; it curled Arthur's toes and made him want to just cuddle the man here and now, lick heart shaped imprints down his spine and then pay tribute to each and every one of his fingers, professional relationship bedamned.   
  
“I don't mind,” Arthur told Alfred, suppressing the urge to cackle victoriously, to kick his heels against the floor in giddy excitement, because although it was what he really wanted to do at the moment, it would surely tip Alfred off.  
  
Instead, Arthur glanced back down to his computer, tapped a few keys idly and looked back up, hoping he wasn't being too obvious as he watched Alfred. The American raised his hands up to grab at the back of his collar, tugging the dampened material up and over his head. Arthur's eyes dropped to the sculpted torso that was slowly being unveiled and licked his lips while Alfred's shirt still blocked his view of the Englishman and he could get away with it.  
  
Then the shirt was off and Alfred tossed it over the back of the nearest chair. Arthur resisted the urge to pick it up and fold it, and merely enjoyed the view as Alfred stretched and shook his head, as if preparing himself for some great feat of strength. God, Arthur hoped so. If Alfred did any sort of heavy lifting right now, Arthur could watch the muscles in his arms flex without the hindrance of a shirt, he could see that stomach tighten as the American held his breath, then take his exhausted and satisfied exhale at the end as something entirely different than what it actually was.  
  
He could imagine the man being exhausted from holding Arthur up against the wall as he attempted to suck his tongue out of his mouth, their lower halves moving with and against one another as they worked themselves into a frenzy. And when Alfred's strength finally gave out – or his ability to focus on holding Arthur up while simultaneously frotting himself into oblivion, whichever came first – he would let Arthur fall against the wall, pant into his neck and lick a trail slowly up Arthur's neck.  
  
Arthur's fingers tap-tapped away on his keyboard as his mind barraged him with images. Alfred pressing Arthur into the nearest flat surface and running heated fingertips down his sensitive sides, tugging Arthur's own jeans down to his ankles before shoving his hand down his boxers to grasp at Arthur's hardened cock. Which was unfair, really, because Alfred still had his trousers on. Arthur would sit up, hook his fingers into the belt loops, touch the damp leather of that fucking glorious tool belt as he slid it off Alfred's hips altogether. His jeans would follow easily after that, being held up by nothing more than a loose hem, and the denim would slide inch by delightful inch down tanned hips, curving over those damnable slopes of bone that led to that path of muscle, curving sharply down to frame what was sure to be an impressive cock.  
  
He could picture it now, flushed and hard, peeking out of the top of Alfred's boxers as his jeans slid down his legs. Arthur would pull that last piece of clothing down slowly, baring the American with precision and no small amount of appreciation. Eyes drinking in the toned thighs on either side, that patch of hair just above Alfred's sex that was darker than the hair on his head and just begging for Arthur to bury his nose in, to take in the American's scent before worshiping his entire body with lips and tongue and the overwhelming _need_ to map the entire expanse of Alfred's skin.  
  
And when he was finished for the time being – because he didn't think he'd ever get enough of Alfred to actually be completely _satisfied_ \- he would tug the American by the back of his neck, aim that panting grin at his own wanting mouth and kiss the shit out of him as he lay back and let Alfred take him. And – holy _fuck_ \- he wanted so bad to feel Alfred's heat on him, in him, moving with him, anything that would bring them closer.  
  
Arthur's tapping slowed to a stop and he let out a shaky exhale, glancing up to find that Alfred was once again bent over the air conditioner, pounding resolutely at something, pieces lying everywhere around him. His back was beaded with sweat, his hair damp and sticking to the back of his neck, his jeans sitting slightly askew on the straight line of his hips.   
  
Arthur was beginning to overheat. It had little to do with the _actual_ stifling heat of the sauna that was now his house and everything to do with the fact that he was having trouble focusing on anything besides sexing all over Alfred.  
  
And apparently he was so horny he was mangling English. Like an American. _Oh, god._  
  
Arthur carefully shut his computer, then set it aside as he stood. Alfred turned slightly, eyebrow raised in question as he pushed up his glasses, continued the motion and ran a hand idly through his damp hair. It made the strands stick up in odd places, but instead of looking ridiculous it just looked fucking hot.  
  
Did the man honestly not realize how sexy he was? Without even trying?  
  
“If you'll excuse me,” Arthur managed to get out, tearing his eyes away from the heavenly sight of shirtless Alfred in front of him with what he would forever refer to as a _Herculean level of willpower._  
  
And goddamn if the American wouldn't make a damn attractive ancient Greek demigod.  
  
With that delightful thought, Arthur went straight to the toilet and shut the door, threw the lock and let himself sink onto the closed seat. He had a brief struggle with himself regarding the ethics of having a wank while his repairman – who would no doubt have a starring role in this particular fantasy – worked in the very next room. He let his head fall back and the image of Alfred in one of those damn greek togas invaded his mind, pure white cloth draped over his broad shoulders and dipping down just enough to show most of one pectoral, belted at the waist and _delightfully_ short, showing off powerful calves and strong thighs.   
  
The part of Arthur's brain that had been actively arguing against jerking off abruptly fell quiet. Arthur didn't blame it. The idea of Alfred of a demigod was pretty damn hot.  
  
And Arthur could imagine how easy it would be to shed the American of the cloth wrapped around him. If it was anything like that damn Halloween costume he'd been forced to wear the year he'd lost that bet, it would be so loose as to be almost scandalous and therefore incredibly, incredibly easy to remove. He could slide the one sleeve off a tanned shoulder, watch as that starched fabric moved over smooth skin and muscle as it bunched up at the American's waist. And then, with great delight, Arthur would pull the rope that belted the toga to his waist and watch as the entirety of the American's body was bared for him to admire.  
  
Arthur gave one last glance to the door to make sure he'd thrown the lock and dropped his hands to the button and zip of his trousers. Swallowing thickly, he shoved the denim down his hips with his boxers and took hold of his erection, already flushed and leaking as a result of that damn toga fantasy. Arthur gave his cock one slow, firm pull and let his mind drift back to that image as his forefinger slid over the slit, teased that spot just under the cockhead, and Arthur lost his breath for a second.  
  
Alfred would come to him then, bend over him and trail rough fingertips down his chest, hook his fingers in the hem of Arthur's shirt and tug it up and over his torso. Arthur mimicked the movement with his free hand, bringing his shirt up far enough that he could plant his palm flat against the skin just above his navel, flex his fingers and drag them down until they met the hand that was beginning to pump his cock with increasing speed. The American's hand might brush against his own, but he'd let Arthur continue to jerk himself off, biting his lip and twisting his head as his hips rose into his own hand, knowing that even with his eyes closed, Alfred would be looking at him, watching him bring himself to completion.  
  
“Yer doin' so good, babe,” the American would say in that goddamn sexy accent of his, leaving out his 'g's and mispronouncing his vowels and _ohmygod_ he didn't care how poorly the man spoke English if he'd just do it in _that voice._  
  
Arthur slid lower on the seat as his free hand made a wide path around his arousal, tracing the hint of muscle in his thigh before curving back and dipping beneath his balls, lifting and rolling them briefly before going lower. His fingers felt at his entrance, smoothed over the dry skin before coming back up to his mouth, where he sucked on them until he could barely breath. He traced his wet fingers lightly down his chest before shoving his jeans further down his legs and bringing his fingers back to his entrance.  
  
“You want it?” Alfred would whisper.  
  
“Oh god, _yes_ ,” Arthur whispered into the still air.  
  
But Alfred wouldn't take him, not when he was enjoying the show so much, and Arthur's breath hitched as he imagined the American's fingers circling his entrance once, twice, and then pushing slowly in as Arthur continued to jerk himself off. His hand twisted as it slid harshly down his shaft, fingers spreading to drift across his balls before moving back to his cock, spreading the precum that was leaking out as his fingers flitted over his cockhead, rubbed at his slit and then slid back down. And Alfred's fingers were seeking, spreading him wide and pushing in deep as he searched for Arthur's prostate.  
  
When those fingers found it, Arthur let out an abrupt gasp that ended in a drawn out moan he barely managed to muffle by biting his lip raw. His head twisted to the side and his hand sped up as he imagined Alfred bending over him once more, dragging his tongue up Arthur's chest from navel to nipple, laving attention on one side, then the other, as the American's fingers continued to play with that spot inside him. As his other hand brushed barely-there touches against the hand that was jerking Arthur off, Alfred would whisper encouragements to him. _Almost there,_ or _You look so fucking amazing when you're spread out and begging to come like this._  
  
“Uh- _uhm_ ,” Arthur murmured, letting his mouth fall open in a pant, breathing ragged as he felt himself nearing his peak. “Please, Alfred, _please_ ,” he begged the image in his head, the phantom touch on his cock.  
  
His hand moved faster, his back arched and when his mind supplied him with the image of Alfred flushed with arousal and smirking above him, sweat making his hair stick to his skin as his glasses slid slowly down to the tip of his nose – Arthur came.  
  
x o x  
  
It took a couple of long minutes, filled with heavy breathing and a languid sort of relaxed _sprawl_ across his toilet seat as Arthur rode out the glow of his orgasm, before he noticed that someone was pounding on the door.  
  
Another moment and he realized a voice was accompanying it.  
  
“...seriously, did you fall again? You should probably get that looked at; you've done it twice now and it's not healthy! Arthur? You can't just scream like that and go all silent on me! I know I don't know you very well but if you're dead than you can't pay me for fixing your stuff!”  
  
Arthur stared at the door. Screamed? Had he... _Oh no._  
  
“Arthur? Seriously, if you can hear me just say something.”  
  
Arthur looked at himself and cursed internally as he stood, almost tripped over the jeans still wrapped around his knees and finally made it to the sink, where he washed the evidence of his indiscretion off as best he could. Then he pulled up his jeans and hurriedly went to the door, swinging it open and cutting of the American's worried conversation with himself about the merits of emergency buttons on necklaces for the elderly.  
  
“I'm not old,” Arthur said.   
  
Alfred grinned and pushed his glasses up his nose. He was still shirtless, arms raised up as he balanced his forearms on either side of the doorway in an interested _lean_ that had him so close to the Englishman that he could feel the man's heat. And if Arthur hadn't gotten off just five minutes ago, he imagined his dick might have been overly excited to see the American leaning so close and done something embarrassing like come in his trousers.   
  
“If you say so,” Alfred said and pushed himself off the doorframe and away from Arthur. “I'm done looking at your unit, but I tried turning it on and I think it's pretty much done for.”  
  
“Oh,” Arthur said, frowning.  
  
“I can order you a new one,” Alfred said, bringing out a tape measure. “Should have it within a day or so.”  
  
Arthur frowned at the thought of not having air conditioning for another few days, but brightened considerably when he realize what this implied. “So will you be installing it for me?” he asked, following his repairman into the living room and hoping he didn't sound too blatantly pleased with the prospect of having the American in his house again.  
  
“Yeah,” Alfred said easily, measuring his unit. “It's not too hard to do it yourself, but I don't know if you could lift it. No offense.”  
  
Arthur almost denied this. He'd never been good at admitting weaknesses or faults _(of which he had very few, mind you, it was just the principal of the thing)_ , but he didn't want to argue this particular point. He could probably suffer through installing the damn thing himself, but why bother when he could have a perfectly fit and gorgeous American do it for him? He didn't even need to break anything this time.  
  
“Great,” Arthur said instead. “When will I know how long it will be?” he asked then, trying to phrase the question, _When can I see you again?_ in a way that sounded mostly normal. It mainly just sounded awkward to him.  
  
Alfred must not have noticed.  
  
“Someone will call you when it's in,” the American explained, turning so that he was standing profile to Arthur and running a hand through his hair once more. “And it won't take too long to set up,” he finished with a grin, holding the tape measure out in a deliberate gesture before pushing the button that allowed it to snap back into its casing. Arthur jerked at the noise and Alfred grinned.  
  
“Do you have another window unit that you want me to bring down here?” Alfred asked as he gathered his tools and cleaned up anything he'd misplaced. He reached for his shirt and Arthur must have made some sort of noise because he stopped with his arms halfway through the sleeves and turned to him with raised eyebrows.  
  
“No,” Arthur said, trying to act like he hadn't cried out at the ensuing loss of Alfred's bare chest. “I'll just keep my windows open and hope for the best.”  
  
Alfred frowned as he pulled his shirt over his head and down over his abdomen. Arthur lamented internally.   
  
“You gonna be all right?” Alfred asked, cocking his hip to the side. “It's pretty hot this time of year and you've been fainting left and right.”  
  
Arthur didn't know how to explain to the man that it wasn't because of the heat, but because of his sad, glorious tendency to get lost in fantasies when the American was around. His mind was wired for porn and Alfred had been made to inspire him, he couldn't exactly help himself.  
  
“I think I'll be fine,” he said, hoping his blush wasn't too obvious. “If I feel faint, I'll make sure to lie down.” No need to explain that if he was experiencing a fantasy that might render him unconscious again, he would likely already be lying down. Contrary to his actions today, Arthur didn't usually masturbate on the toilet.  
  
“Okay,” Alfred said, shrugging. He picked up his tool box and smiled as he ran his arm against his forehead one last time before heading toward the door. “I won't lie, I can't wait to get into my air conditioned truck. I swear, it's hotter in here than it is outside. Maybe you should just lie around in your backyard with nothing on. That would cool you down, haha.”  
  
Arthur choked on his spit.   
  
“See you in a couple days, Arthur,” Alfred called as he went through the door. When the latch clicked shut, Arthur slumped into the nearest chair, closed his eyes and just breathed.   
  
The idea of lounging naked in his backyard, though. That was kind of hot. Especially if Alfred was his neighbor, spying on him from his window and jerking himself off to the image of Arthur in the buff. The Englishman opened his eyes and squinted them in thought before moving to his laptop and bringing up a new document.


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur was having trouble breathing. His inhales kept getting caught on his exhales and all that came out was a desperate sort of noise, a plea for something _more_ that ended in a whine as he threw his head from side to side and gasped for air. The room was warm, too warm, and sweat beaded down his forehead and across his bare chest, the sheets beneath him sticking to his back as he moved against them.  
  
A wet tongue made contact with his nipple, licking a trail up and across his collarbone, and Arthur raised a hand to card fingers through thick blond hair, grasping strands as he attempted to keep that tongue right where it was.  
  
“Al-” Arthur tried to say, breath hitching when the fingers buried deep within him moved, brushing up against that spot and cutting him off abruptly. His free hand gripped at the sheets as his hips lifted up and off the bed, bringing his leaking cock into contact with the torso of the man above him. Arthur ground up into that hard muscle, then dropped back down to encourage those fingers to move again as he tried to find purchase.  
  
“ _Alfred_ ,” he finally hissed, gripping the man's hair and bringing his head off Arthur's chest. His breath fell harshly from his lips and he brought that talented mouth to his own, moaning into the kiss when Alfred's free hand moved around to his cock, giving it long, slow strokes as his tongue tangled with Arthur's. They broke apart for air, panting into each other and sharing breath, before Arthur arched back into the pillows beneath him, Alfred's fingers teasing that spot ruthlessly.  
  
“Ah, ah- _hnnng_ ,” Arthur managed, hips twisting in tandem with Alfred's fingers and strokes. “ _Please_.”  
  
“Please what?” Alfred whispered, licking a line up the underside of Arthur's jaw before biting down on the Englishman's neck. He smoothed his tongue over the hurt, then began to trace Arthur's collarbone with wet strokes.  
  
“Please,” Arthur repeated himself.  
  
“What do you want?” Alfred said against his skin and Arthur could _feel_ the man smiling. “ _Arthur_ ,” he purred in that infuriatingly sexy American accent, over-pronouncing the 'r' and dragging out the 'u'.  
  
“Hah, _hah_ ,” Arthur panted, opening his eyes and seeing nothing but the darkened ceiling above him. He closed them again, arched against those talented fingers. “Fuck me,” he pleaded, running his fingers over broad shoulders and down Alfred's upper arms, tugging him up in an effort to encourage him. “Please fuck me,” he insisted.  
  
Alfred let out a deep chuckle and followed Arthur's tugs, letting his fingers slip from Arthur's entrance and crawling slowly up the Englishman's smaller body. Arthur almost cried when his cock was abandoned altogether but he was quickly distracted when Alfred continued to move forward until he was straddling Arthur's chest, weight balanced on his knees as he grabbed one of Arthur's hands. He placed the bottle of lubricant he'd been using before in Arthur's palm and leaned slightly back, hands guiding Arthur's legs up so they bent with his feet planted on the bed. Then Alfred leaned against them gently, his cock standing proud in front of him as he tilted his head and said, “Please?” in a voice entirely too innocent for what he was asking.  
  
Arthur uncapped the bottle and wet his fingers, then threw it to the side and grabbed Alfred's cock, spreading the lubricant in long, smooth strokes that spanned the entire length of Alfred's erection. The American tilted his head back and breathed hard, hips jerking in minute little thrusts as Arthur brought his other hand in to help, switching hands as he stroked from base to tip so that the pressure never ceased as he worked Alfred over.  
  
“Ah, _uhm – yes_ ,” Alfred panted, gritting his teeth for a moment before Arthur watched him bend back toward him, hands reaching out to stop Arthur's movements with a grimace. “Better, ah, stop before I come all over your face, hah,” Alfred said, trying to grin.  
  
“Not that I would mind,” Arthur whispered, trying to hide his blush at saying such a thing. He let his hands drop to the bed though, watched as Alfred scooted back down Arthur's body and then bent to give him a long, deep kiss that may just have meant _'that's fucking hot, but maybe later'_.  
  
Arthur certainly hoped so.  
  
Alfred broke away, buried his nose in Arthur's throat and placed his hands on Arthur's inner thighs, spreading them apart as he positioned his hips. Arthur took a deep breath, closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Alfred's shoulders as he felt the American's thick heat sink into his entrance, filling him completely as he slowly sunk in to the hilt. It hurt less than he'd anticipated, but the stretch still burned in a heated, overfilled sort of sensation that had Arthur twisting his hips in an effort to adjust.  
  
Arthur let out a desperate sound as he bucked his hips, his breath hitching as he felt Alfred's cock move just a little further in, felt him brush against that spot his fingers had teased so mercilessly before. He dug his fingertips into Alfred's back and moved his hips again, whispering, “Alfred, _move_ ,” on his ragged exhale.  
  
“Yeah,” Alfred murmured, not moving. “You're so fucking tight, Arthur, you – oh _fuck_ ,” he said, strangled, when Arthur twisted his hips in argument. “You gotta - _hah_ \- just give me a minute, or this'll be over in _uhmm_.”  
  
Arthur forced himself to stop his movements, instead tracing his fingers up Alfred's back to his neck, grasping the man's face in both hands as he brought the American's face away from his neck. He smiled briefly before bringing their lips together, concentrating on the way their tongues brushed each other, the way Alfred's breaths seemed to be the only air Arthur could get as they broke apart messily only to dovetail against each other again. Arthur was so caught up in running the tip of his tongue across the ridges at the top of Alfred's mouth that when Alfred finally moved his hips, bringing them back and out before thrusting back in with increased force, Arthur had to break away with a high pitched gasp for air at the abrupt sensation of being _filled_ all over again.  
  
“Arthur,” Alfred grunted, running his lips over Arthur's cheeks as he spoke. “Oh god, Arthur.”  
  
“Ah!” Arthur returned, “Hhnnn – ahnn!”  
  
Arthur arched into Alfred's thrusts as his head tilted back, offering up his throat to the American as his hands grabbed at Alfred's hips, trailed up his sides until they dropped to the bed to grasp at the sheets. Alfred had sped up and as his tongue left Arthur's neck, trailed up to pant heavily into Arthur's ear, his angle changed just enough for his next thrust to hit Arthur's prostate. It stole the breath from him in the very same instance that he tried to scream Alfred's name and it came out sounding half formed and desperate.  
  
Arthur could feel the heat beginning to overwhelm him, the tightening in his balls spinning and spinning until the pressure threatened to send him over the edge if that spot was hit just a few more times. Alfred swore breathily into Arthur's ear and his hand came around to grasp at Arthur's neglected cock, stroking it in tandem with his thrusts as the Englishman choked on his inhale.   
  
“Al-” he tried, hands bracing themselves on Alfred's shoulders as the man rose to tower above him, hips moving with an erratic sort of speed as they both struggled to reach their peak. “I'm - _hah_ \- just a – oh god, _Alfred!_ ” he screamed, back coming up off the bed as he used Alfred's shoulders to push himself into an arch as one last stroke from the American's fingers sent him over the edge.   
  
Alfred's hand kept pumping him throughout his intense orgasm, milking him until his vision went blank and he slumped back down to the bed to float in the afterglow, barely aware of Alfred's continuing thrusts as he closed his eyes and drifted.  
  
When Arthur came back to himself and opened his eyes, it was to see his ceiling, slightly aglow with the morning sun. The sheets were twisted around his legs and he could feel parts of them sticking awkwardly to his stomach and nether regions. He sat up and was disappointed, though not entirely surprised, to find the American suddenly absent. He lifted the sheets and scowled when he uncovered the remnants of his latest wet dream. This was the fourth time this week and he was thoroughly tired of changing the bedding every time his subconscious attempted to express his frustration at not having Alfred around.  
  
“Why the hell hasn't he called?” Arthur asked in the silence of his room. No answer was forthcoming and Arthur sighed heavily before getting out of bed and going about cleaning him and his soiled sheets.  
  
x o x  
  
Arthur was typing listlessly on his computer, trying to write a little further on the Spying Neighbor storyline he'd been inspired to write after Alfred's last visit. His dreams, though distressing and tiring in the morning when he had to clean up, were actually doing a good job of providing him material to write from. While he didn't have the real thing waltzing around his house, fantasies that were based entirely on his perverted subconscious were apparently just as good for inspiration.  
  
But even so, he'd rather have the real Alfred.  
  
Arthur glared at his phone, hanging on the wall innocently, mocking him in its silence, knowing that its owner's life _(as a porn novelist)_ depended on it ringing and it just _wouldn't_. Because it was a stupid piece of machinery that didn't understand Arthur's need to write smut about a sexy American repairman. Didn't understand how very dull and _depressing_ his day was when he couldn't secretly eye those strong hands as they worked and then close his eyes in pleasure as his mind twisted those grasping fingers into an image that was thoroughly indecent. His glare strengthened at the piece of shit phone that didn't understand his feelings.  
  
“Ring, you fucking-”  
  
His phone rang. As if the infernal thing was just sitting there, waiting for Arthur to get frustrated enough to swear at it. Arrogant piece of-  
  
 _RIIIIING!_  
  
“Shit,” Arthur swore, stumbling from his seat and dashing to the phone. He picked it up and brought it to his ear, hoping with all his might that Alfred would be on the other line.  
  
“Hello?” he answered, trying to keep the excitement from his voice.  
  
“May I speak to Mr. Kirkland?” the voice on the other line asked.   
  
Arthur frowned. The accent was entirely wrong. This wasn't Alfred.   
  
He imagined it was another worker at the shop, perhaps the manager or a secretary because it didn't sound like Lovino _(there was no profanity, after all)_ , but he hadn't ever been to the shop in person and the voice sounded familiar. He couldn't place it, though, because phones usually messed with peoples' voices, so he brushed it off as his imagination and answered, “Speaking.”  
  
“Ah, this is Dick's Repair calling, you're AC unit is in,” the man explained.  
  
“Wonderful,” Arthur said. Although Alfred hadn't called himself, it meant that he'd be over soon and that was more than enough to placate Arthur at the moment. “When can it be installed?”  
  
“As soon as you come in and sign for it,” the man answered.  
  
Arthur frowned. “I have to come in for that? Can't I just do it when the repairman comes?”  
  
“I am sorry,” the man said, though he didn't sound entirely apologetic. “You must come in and sign for it before one of our men can be dispatched to install it for you.”  
  
That didn't make a whole lot of sense to Arthur, but he wasn't a business owner, so he decided not to argue. Besides, the familiarity of the voice, and the fact that he couldn't place it, was starting to aggravate him and he wanted to end this phone call as soon as possible to get rid of the feeling.   
  
“Can I come in today?” he asked, moving to his computer so he could save his progress. “I'd like it installed as soon as possible.”   
  
“Of course,” the man said. “We are open until seven.”  
  
“I'll be there within the hour,” Arthur said, heard the man begin to say goodbye, and hung up, searching for his keys.  
  
x o x  
  
Arthur pulled up outside the repair shop and looked toward the door, squinting his eyes in an effort to see if Alfred was anywhere inside. He couldn't see anything though, so he cut the engine and took of his helmet as he walked toward the door.  
  
A bell sounded as he walked through the door and Arthur looked up to find the front desk already occupied by someone who could help him. Hand still on the door handle, he opened his mouth to gain their attention, but froze once his gaze settled fully. The man was obviously bored, slumped in his chair as he gazed at the computer that sat in front of him. His head rested on his hand, elbow sliding slowly but surely across the surface of the desk from the weight of it. The man's hair was blond, slightly wavy and long enough that he was able to pull it back into a small tail at the nape of his neck, though a few strands fell loose to frame his face. The stubble on his chin was just shy of being unruly, and Arthur knew from experience that the man meant it to be that way.  
  
Arthur let the door fall shut, giving it a little shove so that it slammed slightly as it closed. Although the bell had not gained the man's attention, that did, and he turned quickly to see who had come in. A slow smile began to spread across the man's face and there was a small but precise click as Arthur made the connection with the voice on the phone.  
  
“Francis,” Arthur said, and the man preened.  
  
“Why am I not surprised?” Arthur continued in a deadpan voice, expression clearly unimpressed. “That after years of being gloriously free of your presence, you would show up in a place with 'Dicks' in the title.”  
  
The man smiled widely, sitting up straighter in his chair. “I think you're confusing possessive with plural, my dear. As a writer, you should be ashamed.”  
  
“Sod off,” Arthur said, scowl firmly in place.   
  
“I see you are still riding the Raucous Emperor,” Francis said with a smirk, looking past Arthur. The Englishman turned and followed his gaze to the vespa parked just outside, bright pink in color and sporting a sticker in the shape of a crown just above the back right tire. Arthur cleared his throat and turned back around.  
  
“It gets good gas mileage,” he said lamely, tucking his helmet more firmly under his arm as a blush spread across his cheeks.  
  
“Of course, _mon cher_ ,” the man said with an indulgent smile. “How have you been?”  
  
“Fantastic,” Arthur growled, marching up to the desk and setting his helmet down so he could cross his arms to express his frustration. “I'm here to sign for something,” he explained.  
  
“I know exactly why you're here,” Francis said with a smirk, turning to his computer with apparent anticipation. “A broken window, toilet, shower _and_ air conditioning unit, all in the span of two weeks. Either you are even more accident prone than I remember, or you saw something you liked when you broke your, what was it?” The man glanced back at the computer. “Ah, the window seemed to have started it all and who went to fix that, I wonder...?”  
  
“Bonnefoy,” Arthur growled, blush gaining intensity as he let his arms drop. He was about to threaten the man's life, a skill he'd honed over the many years that he'd known the Frenchman, when a high pitched melody began to blare out from the vicinity of Arthur's crotch, cutting the Englishman off and gaining Francis' amused attention.   
  
_I like the Gucci Gucci, I love the dollar bill!  
I love your pocket rocket, we live to shock it, shock it!_  
  
Arthur hurriedly shoved his hand into his pocket, tugging the damned thing out before the ring tone had a chance to go into the next verse. He knew that song and he should never have let Antonio anywhere near his phone after the man had listened to it.   
  
_I like the way you smile, I might just bite your lip!  
I see you talking, talking, your hands are talking, talking!_  
  
“Fucking annoying Spaniard,” he muttered, and Francis' attention seemed to focus sharply. Arthur glared at the man, lifted a finger to point at his nose menacingly, and flipped his phone open. “What!?”  
  
“ _Gracias, mi amigo,_ ” was the flourished response, and Arthur could practically feel the happiness from the person on the other line leaking through his own phone, contaminating him with hyperactive Spanish glee. It took a moment for Arthur to recall why, exactly, Antonio might be calling him.  
  
“So he didn't punch you?” Arthur asked, glancing toward the French bastard who wasn't even trying to hide the fact that he was attempting to listen in, bent over the desk as he was.   
  
“He did,” Antonio said. “But I could tell that he was just embarrassed. He really is too adorable when he gets all red like that, just like one of my beloved tomatoes!”  
  
“The fact that you said that about your last three lovers kind of lessens the effect, Carriedo,” Arthur mumbled, placing his palm flat against Francis' face and pushing the man back forcefully. “And please tell me you don't actually put that line in any of your writing.”  
  
Francis darted his tongue out to lick at Arthur's palm and the Englishman quickly jerked his hand back, rubbing it against his shirt with a look of total disgust on his face.  
  
“I just wanted to call and thank you,” Antonio continued, ignoring the question, which made Arthur fairly certain that the answer had been _Yes, I do use it, you unromantic oaf._ Arthur rolled his eyes.   
  
“I do apologize for not calling sooner. I've been preoccupied,” the Spaniard explained, and his tone of voice indicated exactly what, or rather _who_ , he'd been 'preoccupied' with.   
  
Arthur scowled.  
  
“Do I even want to ask?” Arthur asked, swatting Francis' hand away.  
  
“You may, if you so wish,” Antonio answered graciously. “I would not be opposed to giving you the details of my latest adventure with my beloved Lovino. For inspirational purposes, of course.”  
  
Arthur made a face at Antonio's choice of words, then froze like that when he noticed somebody else had entered the room while he'd been distracted by his fellow writer and the pervert still pawing at his phone. Alfred stood just inside the shop, near the back door, and he had a smile on his face as he looked at Arthur. He was dressed in what seemed to pass as his normal work clothes, a pair of low slung jeans and a plain shirt, though the tool belt that Arthur loved so much was sadly absent. The way he leaned against the door frame, though, more than made up for it.  
  
Remembering himself, Arthur sucked his tongue back into his mouth and straightened out his expression as the Spaniard continued his flowery speech in the background. Francis had also noticed Alfred's sudden appearance and the smile that spread across his face did not bode well for the Englishman. _Fuck._  
  
“ _Mon bel homme_!” Francis called enthusiastically. “Just in time, Arthur here was just about to explain why in the world so many of his precious appliances have broken in the past two weeks!” He turned to Arthur with a devious smirk. “Weren't you, Arthur?”  
  
“Uh-”  
  
“And of course you know of my last passionate affair that started when I ended up stuck on that elevator for so long,” Antonio continued on the phone. “A serendipitous meeting indeed, though I wouldn't have thought it at the time. I was just incredibly lucky to have been trapped with that charming young Canadian boy-”  
  
“My _assistant_!” Arthur growled on reflex, recalling the reason Antonio had incurred his lasting ire. His eyes hadn't move from the Frenchman, however, because Francis was turning back to Alfred, as if to begin the explanation of Arthur's recent and recurring mishaps himself. Arthur was having a hard time keeping track of two separate conversations with the _two most annoying people in the world_ , and his patience was wearing thin as his focus shifted.  
  
“Some people just have really bad luck,” Alfred was saying, attention divided humorously between the two of them.  
  
“Ah,” Francis said in a low voice, his accent much thicker than it had been moments before. “But I think there is quite a bit more subterfuge than you realize, _mon chou_. Wouldn't you agree, _Angleterre?_ ”  
  
Arthur panicked.  
  
“-who was so willing to pass the time in such an enjoyable manner,” Antonio kept going. “Well, Lovino is much more ardent, which, did you know, is a synonym for 'violent'? It's very fitting when considering my new lover.”  
  
Arthur growled in frustration, jumped across the desk and grabbed Francis' shirt as the man opened his mouth, tugging him forward and shoving the phone at his ear. Two birds with one stone and all that.  
  
“Antonio wants to talk to you,” Arthur said hurriedly and despite the fun he'd have likely had at Arthur's expense, being able to talk to Antonio seemed to be a pleasant alternative and the Frenchman raised his hand to take the phone.  
  
“Antonio,” Francis purred into the phone and Arthur could just barely hear the stuttered halting of a longwinded explanation on the other end. “You are a Spanish rose among ugly English weeds, my love,” the man continued, giving Arthur a sidelong glance. “How have you been?”  
  
Arthur tuned the man out and turned to Alfred, whose smile hadn't dimmed in the least despite Francis' and his recent exchange. There was a slight pause where the only sound was Francis' half English, half French-pick-up-lines conversation in the background, wherein Arthur tried to think of the best way to explain the questions Alfred would surely ask after speaking with Francis.   
  
“Subter-what?” Alfred asked.  
  
Arthur's expression nearly deadpanned and he just barely avoided snorting in disbelief, but he looked at this as a blessing. Despite Francis' meddling, Alfred was still none the wiser of Arthur's sabotage.  
  
“Nothing,” Arthur said, placing a hand on his helmet and fiddling with the strap. “I came in to sign off for my air conditioner?”   
  
Alfred raised an eyebrow in slight confusion. “You don't have to sign for that,” he said, coming further into the shop and picking up a stack of papers from the basket at the end of the desk.   
  
Arthur stared. “I don't?”  
  
“Nope!” Alfred answered, throwing a grin his way. “Not that I don't appreciate you comin' in personally to set up a time for me to install it. Who said you had to sign for it?”  
  
Arthur let his eyebrows sink into a frown as he turned narrowed eyes on the Frenchman still talking on his phone. Francis was oblivious to the glare; having been on the receiving end so many times in the past, the man had likely built up a tolerance. But Arthur fumed regardless. His next novel was so going to have a love triangle. A hot American Youth, a successful English Businessman and a French Prostitute who was sullying the poor American Youth's innocence with his perverted tendencies until the English Businessman smashed his face into the wall or poisoned his stupid wine or handcuffed him to an electric fence or- Well. At any rate, the sound of a dying Frenchman would be the soundtrack to their happy ending as the English Businessman swept the American Youth into his arms and carried him off into the distance,   
  
Where they would have sex. A lot of sex. Hot English sex, with none of that stupid French frippery.   
  
“Hello?”  
  
Arthur blinked, came back to himself and looked at the American. He may have blushed, but he felt he'd covered it up adequately with his furious scowl.  
  
“You were spacing out on me again,” Alfred explained, unaffected. “Does that happen a lot to you?”  
  
 _Only when you're around,_ Arthur thought internally. _Distracting me with your good looks and your hot body and your stupid sexy accent._ Arthur was getting hot just being in the same room as him, and this is exactly why he rarely left his house. Too many people around to see him act like a complete nutter over some hot piece of arse.  
  
“So _you_ were the mysterious Spaniard with the British accent who called and asked for Lovino!” Francis said, overly loud. “I must say, you don't sound British at all right now, have you been working on your impressions?”  
  
Arthur nearly screamed. Instead, he darted over and snatched his phone away from the Frenchman. “Would you _shut up!?_ ” he yelled, face bright red. He flipped his phone shut, cutting of Antonio, and grabbed his helmet.   
  
“If you say anything to him, I will _kill you_ ,” Arthur hissed at Francis.  
  
Then he ran out the door.   
  
His frustrated exit was less dramatic than he would have liked, because you can't slam a car door if you ride a vespa. And no matter how fast you go, when the vespa is pink in color, vrooming away on it as you're bent comically over the handlebars really only leaves people mildly amused.  
  
“He forgot to set up his appointment,” Alfred said into the silence.  
  
x o x  
  
Arthur had been writing, or trying to write, when Alfred showed up to install his new air conditioner.   
  
Despite his hasty and somewhat embarrassing retreat the previous day, he'd managed to contact the repair shop and set up a time for Alfred to come by. The American had carried the large unit in while Arthur held the door, and had quickly started installing it while Arthur went back to writing, his computer still set up in the living room from the heat.  
  
During the installation, Arthur repeatedly snuck glances at the hard working American, watching with hungry eyes as the man bent to his task. His jeans were a bit tighter today, hugging his hips in a way that had garnered almost the entirety of Arthur's attention for the first half hour. That attention had slowly shifted to Alfred's neck, where beads of sweat gathered and soaked the collar of his shirt. His hair stuck to his forehead in the heat, but today was cooler and Alfred wasn't suffering nearly as much as he had the last time. Still, the sight of a sweating Alfred did not go unappreciated and Arthur had managed to finish a large chunk of writing while the man worked.  
  
The problem came toward the end of the installation, as Alfred was fiddling with the settings, turning it on and off to make sure everything worked, and finally turning to Arthur to announce he was finished. Arthur was, oddly enough, not looking at him. Instead he was frowning at his computer, tapping the delete key repeatedly and with vicious certainty as he erased the fifth attempt he'd made at the current paragraph.  
  
“I'm done,” Alfred said slowly, taking a few steps toward the coffee table Arthur was using. Arthur growled, held the key down and watched as the entire paragraph before that disappeared as well. Then he threw himself against the back of the couch and closed his eyes in frustration.  
  
“Troubles?” Alfred asked, bending over to look at Arthur's screen upside down. Arthur peaked his eyes open, leaned forward and closed the computer enough that Alfred couldn't read anything. Though why Arthur deemed this necessary, given Alfred's knowledge of the Englishman's profession, was something not even Arthur wanted to try and explain. It was the principal of the thing, he supposed.   
  
The American looked up at him and smiled winningly.  
  
Arthur narrowed his eyes, let them drift down to the man's hips briefly before he looked off to the side. He was getting distracted, and unlike all the other times where it had actually fueled his imagination, this time was different. He'd been trying to write the wind down part of his story for the past half hour and he'd failed miserably every time. To be fair, this was the part that gave him trouble every time, but he usually didn't get this frustrated with himself when it happened. Usually he had no problems taking a short break from writing and usually he managed an epiphany if he gave it enough creative thought.   
  
_Usually_ his main character was based off his own personal imagination and not an actual person who stood in front of him, sweating and gorgeous, offering a smile that said _ask me anything, I'll give you the answer you're looking for._   
  
He threw around the idea of asking Alfred for his thoughts on the subject, because the American looked truly interested in his current stasis and who would know better how this particular character would behave in the afterglow than the man he was based off of? But he could feel his cheeks heating at the mere _thought_ of explaining it. Then again, Arthur mused, looking toward his object of both frustration and affection as the American straightened and glanced back at the air conditioner he'd just installed, the man was well versed in erotic novels, if their previous conversations were anything to go by. There may, in fact, be some sort of hidden inspiration in the depths of Japanese and French smut novels, and Arthur could definitely hide behind that excuse should he need to.  
  
“I'm stuck,” Arthur blurted before he could second guess his decision.  
  
Alfred turned back to him and cocked his head to the side. “Stuck on what?”  
  
Arthur tried valiantly to make his cheeks less red, but he doubted it was very effective. He cleared his throat. “On a part of my...novel. I'm stuck.”  
  
“Oh,” Alfred said, smiling as he edged nearer to where Arthur sat. “What part? Maybe I can help.”   
  
The American looked far too excited to lend his help in writing an erotic novel, but Arthur soldiered on regardless, hoping he didn't sound as awkward as he felt. “They – by which I mean the two main characters – have just finished, ah-”  
  
“Having sex?” Alfred asked, flopping down on the couch next to him. Arthur felt a warm fluttering in his stomach at the sudden closeness of their bodies, a sudden heat rushing to engulf his chest as his breathing hitched silently. He could feel Alfred's heat through the material of his trousers, knew that the arm Alfred has placed on the back of the couch reached far enough toward Arthur that if he wanted to, he could lean back and have those strong fingers in his hair.   
  
But he restrained himself. Just barely.  
  
“Yes,” he said reluctantly, getting his breathing under control and hurrying on. “And I can't decide how I want it to wind down, if you know – ah – what I...”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Alfred said eagerly. “I took a creative writing class in college!”  
  
Nice to know, Arthur thought, but not exactly helpful. Arthur had taken the exact same class, and many more besides, and look where it had landed him. Sitting on his couch with a man that was basically sex on legs, discussing how best to wrap up the steamy sex scene in his latest erotic novel. Depending on how you looked at it, this could be good or bad, but since Arthur was a pessimist by nature, he went with: _awkward_.   
  
“Anyway,” Arthur said, “I always have trouble with this part...”  
  
“Oh,” Alfred said, humming to himself for a moment before his face lit up with sudden inspiration. “Okay, okay,” he said excitedly, “I've got an idea, but tell me what just happened. In the story, I mean.”  
  
Arthur swallowed and gathered his courage, felt it cower back from fear of embarrassment and grabbed it by the collar to give it a pep talk. _If Alfred had come back after that horrendous display in the bathroom_ and _catching Arthur having a wank on the toilet, we are so far beyond being embarrassed that asking him for help shouldn't be that big of deal! So hike up your skirt and get the bloody fuck out there!_  
  
Arthur cleared his throat.  
  
“They just made love in the living room,” he explained, hoping to _god_ that Alfred didn't ask more about the situation than that. Like what the characters looked like or their nationality or anything specific like that, because surely he'd connect the dots and discover Arthur's sudden creative streak had been based entirely on the idea that he had a magnificent cock to go with his thoroughly gorgeous _everything else_.  
  
Alfred hummed, then asked, “Positions?”  
  
“Uh,” Arthur said, brain fizzling in his attempt to figure out whether or not Alfred had _actually asked that question._ And how the hell he was going to answer without losing his mind to fantasy.   
  
“The bottom, uhm, was riding his partner and they were on the couch. They haven't moved since orgasm.” And what an orgasm it had been. It had been based almost entirely on a wet dream he'd had, so he could attest to that personally.   
  
Ahem. _Focus._  
  
There was a moment of silence where Arthur hoped that Alfred would declare himself unable to help Arthur, pick up his stuff and leave, because the Englishman was greatly regretting his decision to ask for the American's help. His cheeks felt so hot he was afraid they might be permanently stained pink after this, his palms were getting sweaty and the butterflies that had taken up permanent residence in his stomach would not stop fluttering those damn wings of theirs. He was halfway convinced they were actually cutting up his stomach lining; he was actually beginning to feel ill.   
  
You'd think that, given his profession, he'd be less embarrassed to speak about sex than most people. But when it came to Alfred, Arthur had the horrible and persistent tendency to act like he was brain-dead. What the hell had he been thinking?   
  
“Okay,” Alfred said suddenly, startling Arthur out of his thoughts. “Here's what I would do.”  
  
Arthur didn't have time to ask Alfred what he meant by that, because the American slid his hand between Arthur's back and the couch, gripped at the side of Arthur's hip and _pulled_ , bringing him up and off the cushion and depositing him with no real effort into the American's lap. Arthur grabbed onto the first thing he could to keep his balance, which turned out to be Alfred's shoulders, and his breath got stuck in his throat when he realized that he was currently straddling Alfred's hips, their groins a breath away from being pressed awkwardly _(amazingly)_ close together. Alfred's hands fell to Arthur's hips and he slide down in his seat, spreading his legs just slightly as he settled.  
  
“Let's assume I'm the top,” Alfred whispered with a smile, and Arthur heard the distinct, echoing sound of his mind beginning to fracture. “Are you completely naked?”  
  
Arthur let out a shaky exhale, keeping his hands pressed to Alfred's shoulders because if he took them off, they had nowhere to go _(except, of course, all over the man's gorgeous body, but that would surely lead to awkward questions that Arthur was entirely unprepared to answer, so he just kept them where they were)_. He tried to kick his brain back into gear, to remember how the scene had gone, how much clothing had been lost in the rush to find skin, if any had been torn off in the aftermath. His mind was slightly abuzz with the high of being this close to Alfred, his heart beating so loud it was a wonder the American could not hear it, and his breath stuttered out of his throat as warm hands tightened on his hips.  
  
“Yes,” he said quietly and _god_ he wished he actually _was_ naked right now.   
  
“And me?” Alfred asked. “What am I wearing?”  
  
Arthur closed his eyes for a brief moment, tried to calm the rapid beating of his heart, the shaking in his arms and the blush blooming brightly across his entire face. He'd had fantasies eerily close to this, had _dreamed_ of being in this sort of situation with his American repairman, and he was having trouble focusing on his novel with the reality of his current situation pressing in on him. All he wanted to do was lick a path up Alfred's neck, over the prominent curve of his jaw and then taste the heat of his panting mouth. To drag his fingers down the strong line of Alfred's shoulders, trace the muscles in Alfred's arms before tracing each and ever bone in Alfred's long fingers, counting his short fingernails one by one.  
  
 _Focus, Arthur._  
  
“Nothing,” he said finally. “You aren't wearing anything.”  
  
Alfred hummed, nodding slightly as his fingers trailed up Arthur's side. “So you're exhausted,” he said, “and breathing hard, but super relaxed and sated 'cause it was awesome sex,” he continued, kneading Arthur's muscles. The Englishman closed his eyes again and let out a shaky sigh, felt the tension flow from his body beneath those strong fingers. His breathing had gotten deeper and those damn butterflies were making him feel lightheaded as they flew up and into his lungs, his breaths fluttering out from beneath parted lips to the same rhythm of their flight.  
  
“You catch your breath,” Alfred whispered, leaning forward, lips entirely too close to Arthur's neck, breath too warm as it washed over his exposed skin. Arthur took a deep gulp of air, let it skitter out across his lips. “And your senses slowly come back and you get that all-over warm feeling that rushes through your chest and your fingers and toes.”  
  
Arthur nodded slowly, but his breath hitched quietly when he felt Alfred's hand trace up his chest and then down, once, as the American's breath washed over his lips.   
  
“Now,” Alfred whispered. “What do you do?”  
  
Arthur's mind paused.   
  
He would run his hands down his lover's chest, swirl his fingers in the spend that still clung to his torso. He would tuck his nose into that space between neck and shoulder, breath in the smell of sweat and sex and the lingering traces of soap. He would trace the lines of muscle and bone, memorize the curve of a hip and the dip of a clavicle, file it away in that part of his brain labeled _never forget_.  
  
He would slide his hips back just slightly, drop his hands to flick warm fingers across the jut of a hipbone, the smooth dip just inside a toned thigh. He would want to say something. _You were amazing_ , perhaps, or _I've wanted you since forever_. But he was better with words when they were on paper, so he would drag his nose across heated skin, his chosen canvas, and mouth _more_ against the underside of a strong jaw. More heat, more skin, more ragged breathing, more just-there kisses, more slow touches – the request would be non-specific. Just...  
  
“More,” Arthur whispered. He opened his eyes, watched as Alfred's mouth inched closer for long, slow moments, imagined how those lips would taste, before watching them pull back, stretch into a grin. His heart stuttered once, twice, then started back up again.  
  
“How was that?” Alfred asked. “Inspirational?”  
  
Arthur came back to himself and blinked twice, realized where he was, who he was with. His cheeks warmed. Yes. It had been inspirational – Arthur shifted subtly – in more ways than one.  
  
“Whenever I was stuck in my writing class,” Alfred continued, completely oblivious to Arthur's increasingly uncomfortable problem, “I would try and act it out. My prof said it was because I'm a physical person, whatever that means.”  
  
Alfred was physical, all right. Arthur had known that since the day he'd come to fix his window. Unfortunately, it seemed the American was completely unaware of this fact, or how it affected others. And right now, as Arthur tried valiantly and with much subtly to hide his growing erection, that particular character flaw, though endearing in its own way, was the bane of his existence.  
  
There were many things that Arthur wanted to say to Alfred. _You fucking tease_ seemed a little abrupt and not entirely conducive to winning the American over. And, quite honestly, _would you just goddamned take me already, you sexy manbeast_ felt a little forward, though it was truthful and expressed Arthur's frustration with an effective sort of bluntness. There were a multitude of adjectives, adverbs and creative pronouns that were bouncing around in his head, most of them in regards to some part of Alfred's anatomy, but none of them really seemed appropriate for the situation. All Arthur wanted to do was kiss the man, to run his fingers through his slightly damp hair, to curl his finger around that damned cowlick, to take those glasses off and look into the blue of his eyes without any sort of barrier between them.   
  
But when Alfred raised an eyebrow in question and tilted his head to the side, Arthur knew his window of opportunity had been lost to his wandering thoughts.  
  
So he settled with, “Thank you.”  
  
Alfred's expression eased back into his trademark smile and he patted Arthur's sides where his hands rested. “No _problemo_ ,” he said.  
  
Arthur nodded quickly, then moved to climb off of Alfred's lap, careful to keep his little problem hidden as best he could through strategic motions and an impressive twist of his torso that brought his cock mournfully away from its favorite new person. And he was almost home free when the inevitable happened.   
  
His brain shut off again.  
  
In his haste to get off and away from Alfred, he planted his hand on a loose throw pillow and fell face first into the floor in an impressive flail of limbs and with a large, ominous _thump_. His arse was still mostly on the couch and Arthur took a second to make sure his teeth were all still in place before he let himself slide the rest of the way to the ground, slowly and with _great dignity_.   
  
“Graceful,” he heard Alfred say, and he could hear the amusement in the man's voice. Wanker.  
  
“I'm fine,” Arthur said in return, unwilling to voice any of his thoughts, lest he make the situation even more awkward and embarrassing than it already was _(truly a feat to be accomplished, but if his track record was anything to go by, he was more than capable of upping the level of mortification with an ease roughly similar to that of normal people drawing breath)_. His mind, spurred into creativity by Alfred's previous 'aid', was helpfully providing him with countless scenarios that were making his cheeks heat and his groin ache.   
  
_Are you sure you're okay?_ Alfred could say, worry clear in his tone. His hands would run carefully over Arthur's back and sides as the Englishman picked himself up. In his quest to check for injuries, Alfred would inevitably find Arthur's half hard cock, run his hands over the bulge in Arthur's trousers, and the American's expression would turn from worried to appreciative in point two seconds flat. Alfred would push Arthur's back up against the couch and the scene they had just played out would be at the forefront of their minds.   
  
Arthur's hands would be unable to keep still and he would slide them up and underneath Alfred's shirt, seeking warm skin, letting his fingers trail up and over his ribs to the American's nipples. Arthur would roll them, latch his mouth onto the underside of Alfred's jaw and just _enjoy_ the sounds that Alfred made as he arched into Arthur's touch.   
  
“That feels hella good,” Alfred said loudly and with none of the abject want in his voice that Arthur would've expected given the fact that Arthur was still attached to his neck. “I think it's finally fixed.”  
  
What's fixed? Oh. Arthur creaked his eye open from where his face was still smashed into the carpet to see Alfred standing directly in front of his new air conditioner. He must have had it on full blast because his fringe was blown away from his forehead and his cowlick was bobbing gleefully as he turned his head this way and that, a rather large grin spread across his features.   
  
He turned to Arthur and said, “I'll send you the bill!” Then he picked up his stuff and made his way toward the door, pausing only momentarily to glance back at Arthur, opening his mouth and hesitating. Arthur heaved a long, heavy sigh.  
  
“I'm fine,” he repeated, though somewhat morosely.  
  
Arthur heard the distinct muffling of what sounded like a giggle. “Okay, see you!”  
  
Arthur groaned, turned his face fully into the carpet and let out a shaky exhale. His cock, still hard and wanting nothing less than an American hand to jerk it off or possibly an American mouth to blow it, was pressed painfully into the floor. He shifted his hips to aleve the pain, but only managed to create friction and excite it further. The fantasies of Alfred were still swirling around in his mind and he lifted his head slightly as he heard the telltale sound of the American's truck take off down the street. Then he let his head fall back down with another resounding _thunk_.  
  
Arthur Kirkland was well and truly fucked. The sad part was it was only figurative.


	5. Chapter 5

Arthur sat at his kitchen table, staring in the general direction of his microwave, tea cooling in front of him. He'd been there for about an hour. His breakfast lay burnt and half-eaten near the sink, and this was his third attempt at finishing a cup of Darjeeling before it got cold, a task he was well on his way to failing if his last sip was anything to go by. But Arthur was having trouble focusing on his tea, lovely though it was, because his mind was stuck circling endlessly around his current problem.   
  
He hadn't had a wet dream in five days.  
  
At first, Arthur had thought this a blessing. No more awkward mornings, no more constant laundry. No more frustratingly lonely wanks in the bathroom to half-formed memories of his favorite American after the dream hadn't quite gotten him off. But after a few days Arthur began to realize that this also meant no sexy American, depraved subconscious imagination or otherwise, and no inspiration for his writing. His creativity had gone down the shitter and his latest effort at writing had ended up somewhere in the bowels of his computer's memory, that place where all his words went when they were deemed unworthy of publication. He'd deleted six pages and four attempts at finishing the storyline Alfred had so graciously helped him with on his previous visit, and he hadn't gotten much farther than that in his Spying Neighbor story either.  
  
And on top of that, he was incredibly, ironically, _frustratingly_ horny. And it was undeniably Alfred's fault.  
  
Arthur's mind kept going back to all those times he'd been around his American repairman, all the awkward silences and the almost-touches. The worried tone in the American's voice as he called to Arthur through the door to the toilet, or the way he'd leaned in when Arthur had finally opened it. His obvious concern for Arthur's health when the heat had turned his house into a sauna. The hesitation in his step as he'd left after installing his air conditioner. His suggestion for Arthur to sit naked in his back yard. And of course, the whole _sit on my lap as we figure out how to write your erotic novel_ fiasco.   
  
Arthur had come incredibly close to just kissing the man senseless near the end of that particular incident, and at the time he'd thought Alfred might not mind all that much. The man was obviously gay, and he touched Arthur in ways too familiar to be anything but deliberate. He constantly expressed interest in not only Arthur, but Arthur's choice of profession _(though that could be written off as a mere appreciation for porn, one which Arthur heartily approved of)_. He seemed genuinely interested Arthur himself, but the Englishman hadn't ever entertained the idea of charming his repairman into his bed _(or charming anyone into his bed, for that matter)_ and he was more than halfway convinced he was just imagining it.  
  
Especially when he sat in his kitchen all morning, over-thinking things until he was thoroughly depressed.  
  
But he couldn't deny that the man was his sole inspiration at the moment and, more than that, the object of his slightly skewed and perverted affections. And since he'd likely sit here for another month and a half working up the courage to even pick up the phone, let alone _dial the man's number_ , he would just have to do what he always did: play the damsel in distress.  
  
By which he meant sabotage another appliance.  
  
x o x  
  
Arthur watched the circular tray inside his microwave spin slowly around, taking with it the large ceramic mug that sat near the edge. He was standing near his table, half crouched down behind a chair, but as the seconds slowly counted down on the display, his hopes of making his microwave malfunction once again began to plummet.   
  
He'd tried metal first, of course. He'd always been told to keep metal out of microwaves or they would explode. He'd thrown a spoon in first, pressed the start button and ran out of the room as fast as he could, almost smacking into the door frame in his haste to get some sort of substantial barrier between him and the microwave. But despite his assumption that the machine would explode in an impressive array of metal debris, nothing had happened. He'd peaked his head around the doorway in time to see the last few arcs of electric light within before the microwave reached zero and shut down.  
  
Arthur had been greatly disappointed, so next he'd thrown in a lightbulb. Once again, he'd ran out the door, and then peaked around the corner when all he heard was the hum of the microwave. An impressive array of colorful bursts and a loud shattering sound as the glass finally broke was all he'd gotten in the end, and it had been a complete bitch to clean up.  
  
He'd tried putting more metal in then, a couple spoons and a fork, and nothing had really happened aside from am impressive light show. Then he'd remembered something else he'd heard, a rumor that putting water in a microwave had explosive qualities as well. He was hesitant at first, wondering if this would turn out just like the spoon, but figured he might as well try. The worst that could happen is that he'd have a mug full of hot water, which could easily be turned into the first step of his fourth cup of tea.  
  
But as he watched the microwave spin and spin, he was growing more and more convinced that he'd proven another myth to be false. When the timer reached zero once again, Arthur sighed and stood, walking over to pull at the door's handle morosely. The mug sat within, completely intact and not even remotely looking like it might explode. Hell, it wasn't even boiling.  
  
Tea it was, then.  
  
Arthur picked the mug up and turned, closing the microwave door with his hip as he tried to think of another appliance he might be able to break. The mug in his hand jostled a bit as he did so and then suddenly scalding hot water was _everywhere_. Arthur screamed as it hit his arm, soaked through his shirt and began to burn the skin beneath, dropping the mug altogether as he backed away from it as quickly as he could. His back hit the microwave hard enough to bruise and the thing went crashing down from its wooden stand with an enormous _bang_ and few sizzling sounds. The plug was ripped out of the wall and the door popped open as the machine hit the floor, sparks flying from the button panel as Arthur rushed toward the kitchen sink.  
  
“Holy mother of _god_!”  
  
Arthur slammed on the water and turned it as cold as he could get it, sticking his entire forearm underneath the spray and gritting his teeth as the burn started to set in, attacking his nerves and setting them on fire even as he pealed his shirtsleeve away to allow the water to hit his skin directly. He knew it would only get worse once he took his arm out from under the water and so left it on as he stood there, looking over his shoulder at the destruction that was now his microwave, sitting in broken pieces on his kitchen floor. There were only a few wisps of smoke trailing up from the back of it, dissipating in the air almost before Arthur could see them, and he wondered idly if it would explode _now_.  
  
But it just sat there, fizzling and ruined.  
  
The irony of the situation was not lost on him. He was a writer after all, he could appreciate a good cosmic joke. Ha ha ha, and all that.  
  
“Fucking _ooooooww_.”  
  
x o x  
  
Usually, when people broke their microwaves, they just bought a new one. But that would defeat the purpose of Arthur breaking it in the first place _(and make the fact that he'd burned entirely one half of his arm in the process even more absurd)_ , so after he'd gone to the clinic, he called the repair shop to see if they couldn't perhaps fix it for him instead.   
  
“Usually when people break their microwaves, they just buy a new one,” Alfred said over the phone.  
  
Arthur let his expression drop into a deadpan even though the American couldn't see him. The universe could see him, after all, and Arthur felt much better after expressing how unimpressed he was with its humor.  
  
“This one has...sentimental value,” Arthur mumbled lamely.  
  
“Yeah?” Alfred asked and the phone must have been messing with the man's voice because Arthur couldn't tell whether Alfred was skeptical or if he just didn't know what 'sentimental' meant.  
  
“Could you at least take a look at it?” Arthur asked, letting a little desperation leak into his voice. Which wasn't faked at all, really, he _was_ desperate to see the American again. “It looks fine, it just won't start.”  
  
“Sure,” Alfred said. “It's pretty slow today, so I can be there in like, ten.”   
  
Which was likely true. Arthur had sat at the table, nervously spinning his long-awaited fourth cup of tea in his hands, and he'd only managed three sips before Alfred had showed up. Arthur was so elated to have the American back in his house, though, that he gladly abandoned another failed attempt at calming his nerves to answer the door.  
  
“Right this way,” Arthur said, pushing the door shut and leading Alfred into the kitchen, where his microwave still sat on the floor, tipped on its side.   
  
“Did you try and turn it on like that?” Alfred asked, pausing to look at Arthur.  
  
“Of course not, it can't even reach the plug.”  
  
“Just asking,” Alfred said with a smile. “Could you help me tip it a little, I don't think I can get a good grip on it like it is.”   
  
Arthur stared at the American for along moment, waiting to see if any sudden flashes of inspiration were about to explode across his mind. Alfred was dressed much like he always was, a pair of loose jeans and a plain shirt. His tool belt was once again around his waist and Arthur barely stopped himself from licking his lips at the sight of it. And while the shirt itself wasn't anything special, nor was Alfred actually working on anything that might strain his muscles yet, the mere sight of him standing in Arthur's kitchen was enough to severely alter Arthur's ability to think rationally. Maybe Alfred just looked really good in blue, Arthur thought, letting his eyes dart from the man's shirt to his eyes.   
  
But despite his sudden mental hard on for the American, he didn't feel any pressing need to run to his laptop and start typing, so Arthur nodded and headed over to the microwave. He rolled up his sleeves slightly so that he wouldn't dirty them on the dust that had gathered on the back and bottom of the machine, but before he could tip the microwave as asked, Alfred interrupted him.  
  
“Whoa, what the hell happened?” Alfred asked loudly, grabbing Arthur's good arm to pull the Englishman away from his task and toward the American himself. Arthur could tell his eyes were stuck on the bandages that wrapped around his entire right forearm, and he felt his cheeks heat a little at the embarrassment this explanation was going to entail.  
  
“I burned myself,” Arthur said lamely, trying to twist the limb out of sight. Alfred caught his hand first, though, and gently brought it toward his face, pushing Arthur's sleeve up so that he could see just how far the bandages went. His eyes were wide with shock and concern, but Arthur told himself resolutely that he was just imagining the second.   
  
“On what?” Alfred asked incredulously. “Did you stick your arm in a fire?”  
  
“No,” Arthur muttered, glancing at the felled microwave before remembering himself and turning back to the American. But it seemed he was too late, Alfred had caught the glance and was now turning wide, horrified eyes on the machine sitting innocently on the floor, as if the machine had done some great and unforgivable wrong to Alfred himself.  
  
“You stuck your hand in the microwave?!” he almost yelled.  
  
Arthur blinked. “What-? No! Of course not!” he yelled back, raising his hand to smack it into Alfred's arm. “The bloody thing won't even turn on if the door isn't closed, you idiot!” He tried to yank his hand back, wondering why the hell his brain had decided to get attached to this guy, to decide that there was more to the American than his ability to inspire amazingly hot sexual fantasies and entire smut novels by merely _existing_. Why the _hell_ had he allowed himself to fall head over heels in lust with someone so goddamned stupid?  
  
“Then what happened?” Alfred asked, almost whined, and tightened his hold on Arthur's hand, keeping it firmly in his grasp. “It looks super painful,” he added, turning the Englishman's arm this way and that as he inspected the bandages. Arthur turned his scowl up toward Alfred's face because he didn't enjoy being manhandled and also, the American's apparently earnest interest in Arthur's health may have sort of gotten him right in the chest. That place that kind of exploded every time Alfred looked at him. And if he was going to act like that hadn't just happened and his insides _weren't_ a giant pile of exploded mush, he would do it with his old stand by: the glare.  
  
He hadn't, of course, planned on being met with shining blue eyes and an honest and enthusiastic willingness to _listen_ to Arthur's tale of woe.   
  
So Arthur ran through two or three relatively believable stories that might save his dignity and at the same time milk the sympathy angle, purely on reflex. As a storyteller, he could say with confidence that any of them would be plausible, and with the climax he had worked out for the last one, completely convincing. But that little voice inside his head, the one not directly related to the one constantly trying to get Arthur laid, was lecturing him severely about even thinking about lying to his favorite American.   
  
Besides, the truth might actually work better, given the situation.  
  
“I was heating some water up in the microwave and I don't know what happened. It just – it splashed out of the cup and hit my arm.”  
  
“Why were you heating water in there to begin with?” Alfred asked, thumb gliding idly over the back of Arthur's hand and distracting the hell out of him. Even through the bandages and the damaged skin, he could feel Alfred's touch like an electric shock that buzzed through his entire body before settling in a heated pool somewhere around the vicinity of his crotch. His blush had deepened considerably with the touch and his breathing wasn't fairing well either, which was to say nothing about the state of his mind.  
  
“Because the fork didn't work,” Arthur mumbled, focused on Alfred's hand and not what he was saying. When Alfred's eyes widened and Arthur realized what he'd just let slip, he immediately tried to backtrack.  
  
“I mean-!” he began. “The fork, uhm..” _Think, Arthur, think! Use your imagination, quick! Just go back to those stories from before and-_  
  
“Ah-hah!” Alfred shouted, pointing his free hand at a startled Arthur.  
  
The Englishman cringed. He'd been caught, found out, exposed as the charlatan that he was. It had taken a long while, perhaps longer than Arthur would have thought, but the game was finally up. Alfred had finally figured it out and Arthur would now have to sit through the embarrassment of explaining himself, then watch as his beautiful American walked out the door in disgust, never to return. Arthur wouldn't begrudge him this; he _had_ written a handful of stories and started two actual novels based entirely upon having sex with the man, or having him naked in some sort of voyeuristic fantasy. Or, oh god, that one dream he'd had two days ago where the American had actually _performed_ for him in hotpants and – at any rate, Arthur had done many perverted things to Alfred in his mind and Alfred would surely never speak to him again.   
  
“You were totally trying to blow the microwave up!” Alfred cheered, joy and excitement written clearly on his face. “Man, I tried that when I was in high school and it's harder than you'd think, huh?”  
  
 _...what?_  
  
“Unless you put like a shit ton of metal in there,” Alfred continued, “or something explosive, y'know, like a bomb, it doesn't really work.”  
  
The man was completely, utterly clueless. There weren't enough synonyms in the English language to describe how incredibly _dense_ he was. And at the moment, Arthur couldn't have been happier. Beyond all imagination or belief to the contrary, he had managed to keep his secret!  
  
“But you really shouldn't blow shit up,” Alfred said then. “It's dangerous, you know. And if you wanted to break something else to get me over here, you could've just thrown something through a window again.”  
  
Arthur's mind, skipping happily along to the tune of _He Hasn't Figured It Out Yet, Woohoo!_ , tripped over itself and came to a screeching halt as it got a mouth full of _Oh FUCK_ on the way down. He turned his eyes fearfully in the American's direction, only to find the man grinning at him in a way that suggested he'd been entirely too eager to let this little gem of a secret out.  
  
“Uh, what?” Arthur asked, trying to sound innocent and confused and perhaps like he hadn't actually done anything like sabotage his appliances on purpose.  
  
“You know,” Alfred said easily, gesturing with both hands and finally letting go of his grip on Arthur's. “The whole 'breaking shit so that Alfred can come fix them' thing you've been doing,” he explained.  
  
Arthur's lungs suddenly decided to boycott breathing and, because he was kind of a selfish whore and didn't like the lungs having all the attention, Arthur's heart decided to do that explodey thing again. Twice.  
  
“I don't – know what – you're talking about,” Arthur stuttered, taking a step away from Alfred. Excellent idea. Deny everything. That _always_ works.  
  
“I thought it was pretty cute,” Alfred said, then frowned. “Up until you destroyed your arm, that is.”  
  
Arthur wheezed.  
  
“I don't really want you to hurt yourself trying to get me over here through subterfuge,” Alfred continued blithely. “So I'm gonna suggest you just ask me out.”  
  
Arthur blushed twenty three shades of red and geared his brain up for another round of denial. But then something else seemed to click into place, something Alfred had said niggled at his brain until it fell into place, and Arthur's look of horror melted into one of confusion, and then finally, calculation. He narrowed his eyes and turned his head just slightly as he realized what this all meant.  
  
“You mean to tell me,” Arthur started slowly. “That you _knew_? This whole time? And you what, just acted like you didn't?”  
  
“Well,” Alfred said with an easy smile. “Basically.”  
  
“You-!” Arthur sputtered. He'd fucking known! The whole goddamn time! And he'd just let Arthur keep _doing it_ , making an utter fool out of himself with all those bloody – oh god.  
  
“The shower incident?” Arthur asked, horrified.  
  
“Don't really know what that was about,” Alfred admitted, hands on hips, expression thoughtful. “But you only did it when my clothes came off, so...”   
  
“And the-” Arthur swallowed painfully around the large chunk of mortification caught in his throat, struggled to stay indignant and angry. “The air conditioner?”  
  
Alfred laughed. “Come on! I mean, _technically_ I 'don't know what you did' in the bathroom,” he said through his humor, making air quotes with his fingers. “But I can take a guess.”  
  
 _Bloody, fucking-_ Arthur struggled to breath normally.  
  
“And the whole couch thing with the touching and breathing and the -” _frustration!_ Arthur added mentally. _Why the hell hadn't he just- He could've just fucking- AGH!_  
  
“I like pushing your buttons,” Alfred said cheekily, smile kicking up on one side.  
  
Arthur huffed out a breath, set his feet and let his anger and embarrassment morph into something a little like blind courage. “I'll give you a button to push,” he growled, and then he _pounced._

Alfred was a solid man – Arthur had five repair bills, six written sex scenes and a whole slew of sexual fantasies that attested to that fact – and even then, he almost knocked the man over with his sudden enthusiasm. His arms went up and around Alfred's neck as his mouth sought out the American's, and Alfred's arms immediately wrapped around his waist to catch and hold him, staggering back from the sudden weight until his back met the wall behind him. Arthur's lips found Alfred's and their teeth clacked briefly before they settled against one another, reveling in each others' heat as Arthur brought his legs around Alfred's hips to hold himself up. Arthur could hear and feel the abrupt, deep breath that Alfred took through his nose before he opened his mouth and Arthur dovetailed against a seeking tongue, meeting it with his own enthusiasm.   
  
They broke for air and Arthur dragged his fingers from the base of Alfred's neck to the collar of his shirt, tugging the fabric roughly as he brought Alfred's mouth toward his once more. The American tasted like sweat and summer sunshine, was warm and soft and _perfect_ beneath his mouth and fingers. Arthur kissed the man with an urgent sort of desperation, convinced somewhere in the back of his mind that this was just another fantasy, another delusion constructed by his perverted subconscious, and that he had to get as much of Alfred as he could in this instant because it could be gone in the next.  
  
Alfred's hands snuck down from Arthur's waist to grab at his backside, bringing Arthur at once closer and higher, hitching him up so that Alfred was craning his neck up to keep contact with Arthur's mouth. Arthur liked the angle, ran his tongue slowly across Alfred's bottom lip to express it, and then let his head tip back languidly as Alfred's entire body bucked into him.  
  
“Oh,” Arthur said, fingers tightening on Alfred's shirt as he arched back, feeling a solid presence just below his own erection that signaled Alfred's own desire.  
  
“You really wanna do this in the kitchen?” Alfred asked heavily, grunting as he kept Arthur's tipping body from falling entirely backwards.   
  
Arthur let out a heavy breath as he brought himself back toward Alfred, placed his mouth right next to the American's ear and hummed, “I don't care.” Arthur rolled his hips into Alfred's stomach and bit his lip at the friction.   
  
It was a lie; if his brain hadn't been so entirely focused on the feeling of Alfred's hands on his arse, the wet warmth of that grammatically challenged mouth and the prospect of having Alfred's gorgeous body completely unclothed and free to worship in the ensuing moments, Arthur definitely would've thought twice about giving Alfred the go-ahead to have sex in his kitchen. He was high on...something. Alfred's body, their shared breath, the exhilaration of having this man after weeks of stifled torment, the slightly burnt fumes that still clung in the air from when the microwave had met its end, Arthur wasn't exactly sure what. But it was making him care a great deal less about his neighbors watching him have sex on his dining room table.  
  
“Well,” Alfred said, evidently less effected by whatever was steamrolling Arthur's ability to think rationally. “I've always enjoyed sex on a bed.”  
  
Arthur ran his lips across Alfred's cheeks, enjoying the way the American's jaw moved when he said 'sex', the way his tongue flitted across his teeth on the 'x', the hum of thought that came afterward. Arthur liked sex and he liked beds and he thought that they would probably go wonderfully together, if they could manage the stairs.   
  
“Not that I'm opposed to, _hah_ ,” Alfred breathed out a laugh as Arthur's tongue ran across the corner of his mouth, “a good _shag_ against a wall, mind you,” he finished.   
  
The American giggled and Arthur pulled back to look at him. “See what I did there?” Alfred asked gleefully, readjusting his hold. “I used British. Blimey!”  
  
Arthur paused for exactly one second before he dove in to crush his mouth against Alfred's once more. He was torn between the need to shut Alfred and his horrible British accent up and the urge to kiss him into a coma because he was so _endearingly stupid_. Alfred didn't seem to mind either way, and Arthur only broke the kiss when he couldn't hold his breath any longer.   
  
He pulled back and looked at his work; Alfred's glasses were askew on his nose, his lips reddened from being kissed, but his hair was relatively untouched and, aside from that one lock of hair that seemed to defy gravity itself, fairly presentable. Arthur licked his lips and slowly dragged one hand through Alfred's blond locks, starting at the fringe and tilting the American's head slightly to the right with the force of his impromptu caress. His fingers carded roughly through thick hair, and when he was done it was properly mussed and fucking sexy as hell.  
  
“Better,” Arthur whispered.  
  
“Bed,” Alfred answered.  
  
Arthur smirked and grabbed onto that one stray lock of hair, tugging gently and enjoying the slight but pleasurable wince that flitted across Alfred's face as he did so. “Up the stairs and to the right,” Arthur said, tone challenging as he tightened his legs around Alfred's hips in a pseudo hug.  
  
Arthur had thought the American overly confident when he didn't immediately put him down so they could stumble up the stairs separately _(though pressed against each other every other step and getting distracted wherever there might be a wall to use as leverage)_. But as Alfred navigated the stairs with relative ease, mouth detouring every couple of moments to lick or kiss at any skin within his reach, Arthur felt his cheeks heat and his cock harden at the display of strength that, as soon as they made it to his bed, would be focused entirely on Arthur.  
  
All of a sudden Arthur felt a shiver of nervousness run up his spine, felt his breath shorten as something in the very back of his mind clicked into place and he realized that this wasn't one of his perverted fantasies, nor was it a dream he would soon wake up from. This wasn't a scene in his book, this was _actually happening_ , and as Alfred used Arthur's back to push through the door to Arthur's bedroom, the Englishman remembered a very important detail that had all but fled his mind in the excitement of finally kissing Alfred in the kitchen.  
  
“Wait, wait, wait,” Arthur said quickly as his back hit the mattress. Alfred rose slightly, hands braced on the duvet beside Arthur's head as he licked his lips in seeming anticipation. Arthur put his hands firmly on Alfred's chest and applied pressure to keep him at bay. His mind derailed slightly at the feel of muscle beneath Alfred's thin cotton shirt, but he shook himself mentally and refocused.  
  
“What?” Alfred asked. “We forget somethin'?”  
  
“No, I-” Arthur stumbled, biting his lip nervously as he struggled with his embarrassment.  
  
Alfred grinned and dipped his head down, brushing his lips across Arthur's collarbone as his fingers undid the buttons of the Englishman's shirt one by one with deliberate motions. Arthur's arms bent with him and his fingers gripped the front of Alfred's shirt as he bucked his hips up into the American above him. “What could it be?” Alfred murmured against the rise of one shoulder. “You don't actually want to have sex?” he guessed.  
  
“No! No, I-” Arthur tried again, sounding like a broken record. “I – oh god – I want this - you,” he managed, arching against the drag of Alfred's fingertips.  
  
Alfred hummed happily, tonguing a wet line down the middle of Arthur's chest as his fingers abandoned Arthur's shirt and started playing with the button and fly of his trousers. Arthur's hands grabbed Alfred's shoulders, half a motion to halt the American's actions, half to use him as leverage to raise his hips into the contact.   
  
“Maybe you have a certain position you'd like?” Alfred guessed again, tugging on the waistline of Arthur's trousers until they began to inch their way down his hips. “And your English sensibilities make you too shy to ask?”   
  
Arthur moaned, squirmed under the slow movements and panted as he tried to answer, a futile effort with Alfred working so diligently to scatter his thoughts. The American abandoned Arthur's trousers for a moment to run his fingertips up his naked sides, around his nipples and back down to his navel. He leaned over and Arthur watched as an amused smile played at his lips. “Which is absolutely adorable, by the way,” Alfred said.  
  
Arthur let his head fall back to the pillow in frustrated embarrassment. This wasn't going like he wanted, and how the hell was he supposed to tell Alfred what he needed to if he couldn't even string three words together? Alfred chuckled as he went back to his previous task, fingers tracing the outline of muscle just beneath Arthur's hipbones.  
  
“Lotus position? Leapfrog?” Alfred murmured, continuing with his theory, and Arthur's breath caught in his throat when he felt that finger dip just a little lower, felt warm breath on his exposed cock. “Cowgirl? Or should I say cow _boy_?” he finished, lips brushing lightly across Arthur's erection as he spoke.  
  
Arthur's mind was providing him with vivid images of each of the positions Alfred listed, his heart racing at the prospect of doing any one of them, of feeling Alfred inside him as they worked themselves into a frenzy. Alfred's _breath_ was sending his thoughts scattering as soon as they formed, Arthur could only imagine what it might be like to have the American's _mouth_ on him. Arthur strained his head back as his trousers and boxers slid down his thighs, as Alfred's breath washed over the exposed skin, as the American's intent became too obvious to avoid any longer. Arthur squinted his eyes shut, felt his blush increase tenfold as his fingers dug into Alfred's shoulders.  
  
“I'm a virgin!” he shouted abruptly.  
  
Arthur felt that wonderfully warm breath leave his exposed skin, felt Alfred shift on the bed slowly as silence enveloped the room. The writer let out a shaky sigh, dreading the impending reaction as the silence stretched, as his mortification grew, as he tried to think of what to say next, how to justify it maybe, he didn't know where to even start. Arthur opened his eyes slowly, fearfully, turning his head to see Alfred hovering above him, and expecting a look of condescension, perhaps contempt. Instead, Alfred was staring at him with a mixture of disbelief and amusement, his mouth twitching as if he was unsure whether he wanted to try and keep a straight face or just laugh outright, and thus he was attempting to do both.  
  
“You're a...” Alfred started, letting out an abrupt snort. “You write porn for a living!”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur answered slowly.  
  
“You write porn,” Alfred repeated, holding up a finger briefly before pointing it at Arthur, “but you've never had sex?”  
  
“Well...” Arthur mumbled, shifting uncomfortably beneath the American. He was still achingly hard, but Alfred seemed more interested in teasing him than getting him off and Arthur let out a shy exhale as his hips bucked up slightly, seeking friction. He wished the American would tease him _later_ , preferably after he'd come, when he was too dizzy with the afterglow to really give a shit. He bucked his hips again.  
  
“How many books have you written?” Alfred asked, ignoring Arthur's movements in a tragic display of control.  
  
“What?” Arthur asked, snapped out of his thoughts. “Ah, twenty something?”  
  
“You've written twenty smutty books and you've never actually done it yourself?” Alfred said, disbelief written clearly on his face. “How does that work?”  
  
“I know where everything _goes_ ,” Arthur said defensively, pushing his hand roughly into the center of Alfred's chest in annoyance. The American allowed himself to be pushed slightly back, hands coming off the bed for a moment before he let himself fall back into the same position. Arthur scowled. “The mechanics aren't that hard to understand, and...” Arthur trailed off, glancing aside.  
  
“And?” Alfred prompted, fucking _wiggling_ as he clearly enjoyed Arthur's discomfort.   
  
“I've done...research,” Arthur mumbled.  
  
Alfred hummed in pleasure, smile wide as he leaned down to touch noses with Arthur. The Englishman crossed his eyes for a moment, then turned them up to look at the American. “I'll be gentle,” Alfred said happily, winking.  
  
“Uhm,” Arthur whispered, closing his eyes as Alfred's hands curved around Arthur's hips, trailed up his sides to dip beneath the shirt still clinging to his arms, pushing it aside as his mouth found Arthur's nipple. Arthur gasped quietly, hand going to grip at Alfred's hair for a moment before the American crawled back up to meet Arthur's mouth with his own. The kiss was slow and languid, but ended abruptly as Alfred palmed his cock, giving him the friction he'd been so desperately seeking for the past few minutes and causing him to break away to gasp at the sensation.  
  
“Ah-!” Arthur voiced, squirming as Alfred wrapped his fist around Arthur's erection and gave one long pull and thumbed the tip.  
  
Arthur panted for a moment before pulling his thoughts together enough to wrap his fingers around the hem of Alfred's shirt and tug meaningfully. “Off,” he ordered, feeling incredibly naked in front of the still fully clothed American.  
  
Alfred laughed but complied, abandoning his grip on Arthur's cock to grab at his collar and tug his shirt up and over his head. Arthur nearly whined at the loss of contact, but turned it into an appreciative hum when Alfred's chest and stomach were revealed in all their tanned glory. It was just as impressive now as it had been the day he'd attempted to fix Arthur's air conditioner, but the extra implication of what they were about to do made Arthur lick his lips in pure want and anticipation. He was impatient to see the rest of Alfred, the one short glimpse he'd had weeks ago and the resulting fantasies not enough to satisfy him now that he had the real thing kneeling in front of him, shedding his clothes leisurely for Arthur's benefit.  
  
Alfred tossed his shirt aside and focused his eyes on Arthur, who returned his gaze fleetingly before turning back to look at Alfred's bared skin, broad shoulders flexing in the fading light of the afternoon. “I've had countless fantasies about this,” Arthur murmured.  
  
“Is _that_ what you were doing when you spaced out on me all those times?” Alfred asked, amused. Arthur blushed furiously when Alfred added, “How's the real thing?”  
  
Arthur scowled at the American and deliberately tugged the button of his jeans undone with a jerk of his hand, pulled the zipper down and propped himself up on his elbows to more firmly grind the heal of his hand against the hardness he uncovered there. Alfred's breath hitched audibly and his hands came up to grasp at Arthur's shoulders as his balanced threatened to tip. Arthur smirked, gaining a little bit of his confidence back. At least it was easy to shut the man up.  
  
The real thing was better than any fantasy his impressive arsenal of sexual imaginings could come up with, of course, but he wasn't about to _say_ that, let alone let the man _gloat_.  
  
Alfred took a deep breath and straightened, pulling Arthur's trousers and boxers the rest of the way off his legs and chucking them across the room with a flair of his arm before falling to the side of Arthur and onto his butt as he kicked his own jeans off and onto the floor. Arthur felt awkward sitting there in just his shirt, but was thoroughly distracted as he watched Alfred hook his thumbs in his red boxers, greatly anticipating what was about to be uncovered and not even trying to hide it as he stared. He frowned, though, when Alfred made no further move to unveil himself, and glanced up to find the man grinning at him. Alfred slowly removed his thumbs from his waistband and spread his hands out as if in invitation.  
  
Arthur took a deep breath and just stared at the hurdle before him. If this were a scene in his book, he would straddle Alfred's knees and slowly pull down the last barrier between him and his lover, dragging the tips of his fingers across the smooth skin of Alfred's thighs as he went, sensitizing the American to his touch before he bent down to lick at the exposed cock. He would drag it out, throw Alfred heated glances and when he was done, he would crawl up the American's body and take his mouth in a slow, consuming kiss.  
  
 _Okay. Don't fuck this up._  
  
Arthur moved, kneeled beside the American and hovered, hands hesitating for a moment before brushing his fingertips against the elastic band of the boxers. He threw Alfred a glance, found him biting his lip in anticipation and focused on what he was doing, hooking his fingers around the hem and tugging slightly. He pulled the boxers slowly down Alfred's hips, knowing full well that his face was likely the same color as the boxers but continuing on gamely. He paused to admire Alfred as the American's cock finally broke free from the fabric, framed by two powerful thighs and just waiting for Arthur to taste. But Arthur continued with the task at hand, pulling them down around Alfred's knees and placing a steadying hand on Alfred's stomach as he leaned to the side to get them all the way down and off.  
  
“Arthur,” Alfred keened, stomach quivering underneath Arthur's fingers as he moved his leg up to help the process. Unfortunately, it had the exact _opposite_ effect.  
  
Startled by the sudden voice, Arthur jerked to the side, lost his grip on the boxers and his balance entirely, falling face first into the duvet on the other side of Alfred, body falling across the one beneath him. The American let out a muffled _oof!_ when Arthur's elbow landed in his stomach, hands coming up to grip at Arthur's shoulders as the Englishman's hand crept up in an attempt to balance his recovery and he brushed against Alfred's cock.  
  
Well, shit.  
  
“Oh, hell,” Arthur said, carefully pushing himself up and off of Alfred, who was breathing slowly. Whether it was a result of the injury or Arthur's fleeting touch was anyone's guess. “Sorry,” Arthur mumbled, hand creeping over Alfred's bare hip and stomach in apology before he bent carefully to finish taking Alfred's boxers off.  
  
When they were off, Alfred tugged Arthur forward by his arm and their lips met, Alfred's hands coming up to frame Arthur's face, calluses warm on his cheeks as their mouths dovetailed against one another. Hands drifted lower and suddenly Arthur was pulled flush against the American, groins touching in a haphazard sort of friction, not quite satisfying without any leverage but better than nothing. Alfred sucked Arthur's tongue into his mouth briefly before pulling back only slightly. “S'okay,” he slurred against Arthur's lips. “S'worth it.”  
  
“Uhm,” Arthur hummed, sliding his legs up so that his knees found purchase on either side of Alfred, lifted himself off just enough to break contact before thrusting back down. His breath came out in stuttered bursts at the friction, at the feel of Alfred's cock sliding, warm and hard, against his own.   
  
Alfred bucked up into Arthur's thrusts for a few moments before he flipped them, Arthur blinking his eyes open in surprise as his back hit the bed. Alfred returned to the rhythm of before, head lowering to lap at Arthur's collarbone and chest as his hand crept down, fingers wrapping slowly around both their erections, guiding them against each other and adding more friction. Arthur arched his back, knowing that if this kept up he wouldn't last long, not with Alfred's tongue running across the skin of his neck, the shell of his ear, dipping just inside and-  
  
“Al-Alfred,” Arthur stuttered, hands pushing at Alfred's shoulders weakly before giving up, sliding around to hook at the back of the American's neck.  
  
Alfred slowed their rhythm, brought his mouth around for one quick kiss to Arthur's mouth and pulled away, looking around Arthur's room. “Lube and condoms?” he asked through heavy breathing, looking back toward Arthur.  
  
“In the drawer,” Arthur panted, pointing in the general direction of his nightstand with one hand as his other came up to cover his eyes. That had been intense.   
  
“You're well prepared,” Alfred said, and the _for a virgin_ was heavily implied. Alfred tucked his face into the curve of Arthur's neck and licked a long trail up to Arthur's ear. “How long have you been planning this?”  
  
Arthur jerked his hand off his eyes, choked a little on his inhale, coughed and sputtered and pushed a laughing Alfred off of him. The American followed his pushes and leaned over Arthur toward the nightstand to retrieve the items in question. Arthur blushed when the movement brought the man's cock temptingly close to his face, putting on display just how impressive Alfred's cock really was. Arthur played through a few of his previous novels' sex scenes quickly, the sounds of Alfred rummaging through the drawer in the background, and decided he would probably only get a chance like this once. And even if he'd never done this, he was a pro at _writing_ it and so he knew what had to be done. He needed to brush his nervousness aside and just dive in head first.   
  
Literally.  
  
“Are you sure they're-” Alfred started to say, only to cut himself off abruptly when Arthur's tongue met the underside of his cock, a moan leaking out in low tones as Arthur licked a line straight to the tip, lingering on the head with a few tentative strokes. He pressed his lips to the tip, hummed as his hands came up to steady Alfred's hips, then opened his mouth and took the head with an enthusiastic suck.  
  
“Ohfuck,” Alfred said, bending in on himself for a moment as Arthur's hand came around to circle the base of his erection, to steady him as he took more of it into his mouth. His tongue worked the underside as he moved slowly down, back up, down again; a fixed rhythm of motion that cemented the texture and taste of Alfred further and further into his memory.   
  
Arthur vaguely registered the sound of Alfred continuing his search, and when he felt the touch of the American's hand on his head, he slowly pulled his mouth away, leaning down to place a simple brush of lips against the base before allowing Alfred to pull away altogether. The American kissed him again, tongues twining, and Arthur wondered for a brief moment if Alfred could taste himself on Arthur's tongue, if he liked the mixture of the two of them, decided he would never get enough of it himself.  
  
Arthur was fairly certain Alfred's kisses were laced with cocaine or some sort of aphrodisiac, something addictive at the very least, because he couldn't seem to stop. Even when the rest of Alfred's body was naked and his for the taking, Arthur found himself pulled toward the American's mouth, like he might be able to breathe his lover in through the contact, keep a fragile amount of _Alfred_ within his airways as his breathing hitched and caught, unwilling to let it escape. His heart was thudding rapidly in his chest, overly excited at finally being with the man he'd fantasized about for over two weeks.   
  
When Alfred pulled back, Arthur just watched him, followed the movement of his hands as the grasped the front edges of Arthur's shirt and pulled. Arthur sat up, let Alfred rid him of his shirt, eyes locked on his lips, mind focused on the feel of his fingers. When the shirt was gone, Alfred met Arthur's lips again, then placed a hand on Arthur's chest and pushed. The kiss broke as Arthur fell back to the bed, arms coming up and over his head to stretch without the constraints of his shirt, feeling his muscles burn slightly with the movements as he gave Alfred a small smile.  
  
“Ready, babe?” Alfred asked cheerily.  
  
“Uhm,” Arthur said, stopping mid-stretch, eyes widening. “For, ah, wait-”  
  
Alfred didn't let him finish. He took Arthur's legs in both hands and pulled them apart and up, pushing them toward Arthur's head so that he was bent in half. Arthur was still young enough that it wasn't an uncomfortable position, but it was so abrupt that he let out an undignified squeak at being handled so roughly.   
  
“Alfred, what are you doing?” is what he tried to say. But what came out as his legs were bent as far as they would go, stretching his back and putting his groin on display for the American, was, “Ohbloodyfuckinghell!”  
  
Alfred just grinned and bent his head, running his tongue up the inside of one thigh, tracing the muscle as Arthur felt his legs begin to shake, felt his breath start to flutter as that tongue slid closer and closer to-  
  
“ _Ah!_ ” Arthur choked, head falling back as Alfred's tongue circled his entrance, dipped in briefly before circling again. The warmth moved away then, following the path of his perineum with slow precision, lavishing particular attention on the skin just below his balls before taking them into his mouth and _sucking_. Arthur's mouth dropped open and he struggled to give voice to his thought process, but it was jumbled and overly exuberant, disjointed and generally incoherent, and thus that is exactly what came out of his mouth. Nonetheless, he felt it was an adequate description and struggled to move into it, toward it, as his hands came up to grip at Alfred's own, where they held Arthur's legs behind his knees.   
  
Alfred let up slightly on his hold as he trailed his tongue further, lapping at the base of Arthur's cock before tracing the vein up its path to the head, tonguing the slit all too briefly before moving back down.  
  
“Alfred, uh - hnng, _yes_ ,” Arthur voiced, breath struggling in his throat as his fingers dug crescents into the backs of Alfred's hands. The American backed off for a moment, puffed warm breath onto the underside of Arthur's cock as his thumbs rubbed circles into Arthur's thighs. Arthur keened and Alfred's tongue met skin again, sucking hard at the base of his cock before taking just one of Arthur's balls into his mouth, sucking and pulling back roughly, tugging just slightly before letting go.   
  
Alfred moved lower again, bending Arthur as far as he would go as the American's tongue found his entrance again, circled only once before delving in, deeper this time, sliding against Arthur's walls and driving him insane with the sensation. Arthur chanted Alfred's name, half the time breaking off into swears as he struggled against the hold, trying to _move_ , into Alfred as well as with him, anything. He could feel the heat in his groin growing, spreading through his body like an electric shock with each and every pass of Alfred's tongue, and his breath came out in ragged pants when he could find the presence of mind to breath at all.  
  
Alfred opened his mouth, then, over the entirety of Arthur's entrance and sucked, tongue circling just inside the ring of muscle once, twice, then diving in again. “Alfred, ple- _please_ -ah!” Arthur tried, hands gripping at Alfred's wrists where he still held Arthur down.  
  
The American backed off, licking a path up the inside of Arthur's thigh languidly before slowly unbending him, letting Arthur stretch out on the bed as he dove in to kiss at Arthur's neck. “Holy shit,” Arthur whispered, hands running over any bit of skin within reach as he arched his neck into the kisses, as his breath evened out into something halfway normal. His hips bucked involuntarily into the man above him and the feel of Alfred's erection, still thick and hard and rubbing against Arthur's hip, made Arthur bite his lip on a moan.  
  
Alfred continued to kiss and lick at Arthur's neck, occasionally moving up to play with the lobe of Arthur's ear, the shell and the little indent just inside, and Arthur had trouble keeping track of his thoughts, but he could vaguely feel Alfred's hands moving at his sides. His body shook with want and his hands pulled Alfred's body as close as he could as he thrust their groins together, fingers drifting down to flit across the top of Alfreds arse. Alfred's hand skimmed his side, cool and a little wet and Arthur had only a second to wonder at the sensation before Alfred's fingers drifted over his thigh and around to his entrance, a slick finger circling once before pushing inside.  
  
Arthur arched his back at the sensation. He'd never been penetrated before, not this deep and most certainly not by anyone other than himself, and it felt odd and tight and hot all at the same time. He squirmed beneath Alfred, hands coming up to grip at his biceps, pressing his cheek against Alfred's as the man came up to whisper in his ear.  
  
“You okay?” he asked, and Arthur could manage a nod and that was about it. His eyes were squeezed shut, his mouth canted open as he let out little mewls of pleasure. “Just relax,” Alfred continued, brushing his lips against Arthur's cheek briefly before he added a second finger.  
  
It didn't hurt until the third, until the stretch and burn of being filled sent a sharp jolt of pain up Arthur's spine. He grunted into Alfred's shoulder, opened his mouth and bit at the skin there to keep himself from whining, from giving away how uncomfortable it was. He wanted this, he'd wanted it since the moment he'd laid eyes on the man, and of course it would hurt his first time, he wasn't about to let that stop him from having his American. And Alfred was true to his word, he worked his fingers in and out of Arthur, scissoring them methodically until the pain faded into an aching burn, until the feeling of _too much_ morphed into one of _not enough_.  
  
Arthur began to thrust himself back onto those fingers, wanting more, wanting it deeper, harder and faster, wanting to feel more than just Alfred's fingers within him. He wanted everything he'd ever written about; slow, deliberate lovemaking, rough and dirty fucking, a quick shag against the wall, a leisurely blowjob on the couch, a rushed and cramped jerk off in the hall closet when they had company but couldn't keep their hands to themselves. He wanted it all. Arthur arched into the American, eyes finding bright blue, and pressed his lips to Alfred's chin, darting his tongue out briefly to taste, to enjoy the warmth of his new lover and all the potential he held. “Please,” Arthur groaned, trailing his lips down the underside of Alfred's jaw, enjoying the subtle brush of stubble that contrasted with the warmth of his skin.   
  
“Take me,” Arthur said, his cheeks heating at the fact that he was actually _saying_ something that he'd written into his books countless times. It hadn't sounded nearly as corny on paper.  
  
“Okay, babe,” Alfred said, and Arthur secretly relished the pet name, even if he would likely rail at the man if he used it outside the bedroom. “Gimme a sec.”  
  
Alfred pulled up and away from Arthur, sat back on his heals and reached for the condom he'd retrieved earlier. Arthur let out a deep exhale and settled his mind, sitting up on his elbows so he could watch the American roll the condom onto his gorgeous sex, watch as Alfred gave himself a few pulls to spread the lubricant and then lined himself up. Arthur let his legs fall open as far as they would go, biting his lip as he saw the tip of Alfred's cock rub up against his entrance, felt Alfred began to push in. His head dropped back and he closed his eyes as he braced himself, trying to relax beneath Alfred's hands, breathing slowly as the American inched forward.   
  
It hurt, and Arthur had to concentrate on keeping himself relaxed, talk himself through the pain of being stretched beyond anything he'd ever felt. It hurt, but not enough to stop. And Arthur rather enjoyed the sound of Alfred finally sliding in to the hilt, the soft hiss of pleasure as the American crawled back over Arthur's body and buried his face in Arthur's neck.  
  
“Alfred,” Arthur murmured, and let himself fall back to the bed, arching his back slightly and twisting his hips in an attempt to acclimate himself to the sensation of being filled. The pain began to fade and Arthur could tell that Alfred was close to something within him, that spot that would send pleasure flaring through Arthur's body, rendering any pain he might have felt before utterly irrelevant in comparison. And if he could just get Alfred to _move_ , he was certain it would only get better.  
  
Arthur made a sound halfway between a moan and a hum, ran his fingers down Alfred's sides and bucked his hips up marginally in an attempt to encourage movement, twisting them to the side slightly as he focused on the feel of having Alfred inside him.   
  
“Quit wiggling, Arthur, or I'm gonna lose it,” Alfred said, voice strained and muffled.   
  
Arthur's breath nearly got caught on his inhale as he bit his lip. That was the first time Alfred had said his name and Arthur liked how it came off the American's tongue, liked how it sounded in his accent, low and husky with need, wanted to make him say it again. Perhaps even scream it.  
  
Arthur let his hips sink into the mattress as far as they could, pulling himself slightly off and away from Alfred before snapping his hips back up. Alfred groaned, ending in a deep, rough, “ _Arthur_ ,” when Arthur's hands pulled at his arse. Arthur was about to do it again, greatly enjoying the fact that he could so effect his American lover, when Alfred suddenly moved. His hands came down to grip at Arthur's hips, lifting them slightly and tilting them forward before he used his grip to pull out almost completely and push back in, hitting Arthur deeper and harder than he had before.  
  
Arthur gasped for air as his head hit the pillow, mouth falling open on a silent scream as Alfred hit that spot inside him, sent his mind into a white sort of hazy place where all he could feel was Alfred; his touch, his breath, his heat, his cock buried inside him. The American pulled out again, thrust back in with a grunt and pressed his mouth to Arthur's throat.  
  
“-at'll teach ya,” Alfred growled, and Arthur caught his breath, pried his eyes open and then lost it again when he saw the grin on the American's face.   
  
Alfred set a rhythm and Arthur could do little more than enjoy the ride, hands gripping hard at the duvet beneath him as his body moved with Alfred's, as he jerked his hips up in an attempt to meet Alfred's thrusts, to help him go deeper, harder, to hit that spot that sent him into oblivion. Arthur could feel Alfred's breath on his cheek, tilted his own to the left to feel that warmth make contact.  
  
“Ah – hmm, _nnnnng!_ ” Arthur gasped.  
  
“Ah- _huh_ ,” Alfred agreed.  
  
Arthur strained against the body above him, pressing his cock into Alfred's torso and digging his fingertips into the American's back as he arched himself off the bed, eager for contact. The friction was overwhelming and Arthur's breath began to stutter out of him, moans coming out in shuddering bursts as Alfred's thrusts rocked his body. Alfred bit into the skin of Arthur's shoulder, teeth scraping across sensitive skin before his tongue soothed the hurt, his mouth moving against sweat and heat as he murmured, “Ar _thur~_ ”  
  
“Ah, ah, a-” Arthur's breath left him entirely as he felt himself overflow, felt that shivering pile of want deep in his belly spiral up into his chest as his body went taught, the warmth of his release splashing across his overheated skin as he struggled against Alfred's hold. His voice was caught in his throat, along with the breath that refused to move in or out, but he managed half a shout when his lungs decided to work again, the last half of Alfred's name mixed thoroughly with some sort of profanity that his mind refused to remember, given its current state of chaos.  
  
He fell back to the bed and as Arthur's breathing began to slow, his vision began to sharpen and his mind began to focus again, albeit hazy with sated pleasure, he noticed that the American had stopped moving. His head lolled to the side as his eyes tracked to his lover, breathing deep and languid as he tried to wipe the dopy smile off his face, as he tried to keep the mewls of satisfaction from escaping his lips. It was a failed attempt, if Alfred's expression was anything to go by.  
  
“Damn,” the American said lowly, in that deep voice he seemed to adopt in the bedroom. “I knew I was good but that was fucking hot.”  
  
Arthur felt his blush return in full force and squirmed languidly, wondering for a moment if that meant _Arthur_ had been hot or – but then he noticed something deeply troubling.  
  
“You,” he started, eyes widening a little. “You're still hard.”  
  
Alfred grinned, ran the rough pads of his fingers down the dip between Arthur's pectorals, sweeping into his navel idly as Arthur's spend gathered on his fingertips. He brought it to his mouth and sucked them clean. “Brilliant deduction, Holmes,” he said, again in that fake British accent.  
  
Arthur swatted at him, scowling furiously to hide the fact that he was near the edge of being fatally embarrassed, both from the fact that Alfred was still unsatisfied and the fact that Alfred had just licked his – well, it wasn't as if he hadn't written that particular kink before, it was just...more _intense_ when he watched Alfred do it. A lot of things were more intense when Alfred did them, especially when the man was still buried deep inside him. The American bent down, then, and tucked his face into Arthur's neck, kissed the heated skin there and hummed, bringing Arthur out of his thoughts.  
  
“Get on with it, then,” Arthur grumbled, bucking his hips slightly and letting his eyes close at the sensation. Alfred was rock hard within him and even though Arthur was spent, the motion still sent shivers up his spine.  
  
“You're so cute,” Alfred mumbled into his neck. “I almost wish you were a girl.”  
  
“Excuse me?” Arthur asked, trying to push Alfred away from him so that he could glare directly at that goddamn stupid mouth of his. When the man didn't budge, Arthur settled for jabbing him in the side. Alfred just giggled.  
  
“So I could make you orgasm again,” Alfred clarified, patting Arthur's hip to indicate his limp cock and raising to give Arthur's cheek a kiss. Alfred's smile was boyish and Arthur acted suitably affronted as the American gathered him in his arms, kissed him once more before glancing up.  
  
“Well, then,” Arthur began. “I-”  
  
“Headboard,” Alfred said abruptly.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Headboard,” Alfred repeated, smiling as he pulled out of Arthur and moved to sit at the head of the bed. Arthur lay there for a quiet, awkward moment. He felt rather like he'd been thrust aside for something more interesting, which was both insulting and confusing given the fact that Alfred was still hard and he was being left for a _piece of wood_.  
  
Arthur sat up and looked to where Alfred had moved, blushed a deeper shade of red when he found the man sprawled between the pillows, back up against the headboard he'd so enthusiastically pointed out earlier. His cock lay between his thighs, red and hard and still slick from the lubrication, and Alfred's fingers were rubbing the groove of skin between hip and thigh slowly, in practiced motions. A single finger strayed to the base of Alfred's cock, traced up the underside, then back down as a shiver ran through Alfred's body. Arthur let his gaze linger on the image for long moments before glancing up at his lover. Alfred smiled and crooked that same finger.  
  
Arthur gathered his courage and crawled into the American's lap, straddling his legs and sliding forward as Alfred's hands guided his hips, raised them up so that Arthur was kneeling in front of him, chest level to Alfred's nose. His tongue swept out, licking more of the spend off Arthur's chest and the Englishman gripped at the man's shoulders as his head tilted to the side, as his eyes closed. Alfred's hands kneaded his hips for a moment, then trailed down his thighs, back up to spread his cheeks, finger his entrance.   
  
“Alfred,” Arthur gasped, bending slightly as one of the hands left him, the other guiding him down. When he felt the head of Alfred's cock nudge at his entrance, he put his mouth to Alfred's temple, let out a long exhale and sank down, his legs trembling as he was filled again.   
  
Alfred guided him back up, almost off, then back down, setting a rhythm that began slow, allowed Arthur to familiarize himself with the movements, then sped up as their enthusiasm grew, as Alfred's breath came out ragged against the skin of Arthur's shoulder. Arthur's grip on Alfred's shoulders shifted, his hands coming up to grasp at the back of Alfred's head, keeping it tucked into Arthur's neck as he dropped his own head back.   
  
“Ah, _ah,_ ” Arthur panted, holding on as best he could as Alfred used what leverage he had to thrust up into Arthur, meeting him halfway at a quickening rate.  
  
“Hnngh, yes, _yes_ ,” Alfred called, muffled only slightly, hips jerking erratically as his hands left Arthur's hips, wrapped themselves around Arthur's waist to bring the Englishman closer to his body.  
  
Alfred's hips snapped once, twice, going deep into Arthur as his body went taut, his mouth opening wide against Arthur's jaw. Arthur felt warmth spread inside him and clung to the American, listening as Alfred sobbed something in the heat of his release. It was strained with need and pressed against Arthur's skin and completely incoherent as a result, but Arthur held Alfred through his orgasm, moving his hips in minute little motions as Alfred spent himself thoroughly within him.  
  
Alfred caught his breath after a few moments, hummed with pleasure and moved, pulling away slightly and slowly guiding Arthur's hips off his spent cock. Arthur hissed quietly as he moved off and to the side, watched Alfred take off and tie the condom, scoot comically down the bed before flopping back into the pillows. His face was flushed, his expression relaxed and sated, obviously pleased with himself as he slumped into the mattress. The smile on his face never left, even as his eyes closed.  
  
Arthur watched him, attention divided between the sticky feeling of the come drying on his chest and the warmth that was slowly being replaced by a thrumming ache as he sat on his mattress, cock limp between his thighs, mind still hazy from the afterglow. His limbs still shook and his breaths were still choppy with adrenaline and want, and the image of Alfred laying spent on his bed put a rather nice rosy hue over all of his thoughts. But one thought still stood clear within the pleasant blur and it wouldn't let Arthur cuddle up next to Alfred, no matter how badly he wanted to at the moment.  
  
“That didn't go as planned.”  
  
“Hu-wha?” Alfred mumbled, one eye creaking open to look in Arthur's direction. His posture was still slumped, relaxed, calm. It didn't look like he'd be moving anytime soon.  
  
“Oh, god,” Arthur groaned. “That was so unromantic.”  
  
Alfred's other eye popped open and he made a clear effort to focus his mind. “What do you mean?”  
  
“You didn't even take me to dinner before I put out!” Arthur lamented, tipping over into the other side of the bed and burying his face in the pillow there.  
  
Alfred turned and ran a slow hand across Arthur's back, calluses catching on the sharp dips in his spine. “I'll take you out to dinner tonight,” Alfred offered sleepily.  
  
“It's not the same!” was Arthur's muffled response. “I just had sex with my _repairman_ at two in the afternoon because I was so goddamn horny I couldn't even wait for a proper date. That's only half as bad as the two novels I've written based entirely on your cock!”  
  
“Two novels?” Alfred echoed, slightly more interested. His gaze turned downward and his hand gently patted his hip. “Hear that buddy? You're a star.”  
  
Arthur slowly raised his head to turn and look at the American, brows creased in an expression two parts disbelief and one part frustration. The man was talking to his dick. Alfred turned, smiled, and gave him a thumbs up. Arthur's head fell back into the pillow, defeat written clearly in his posture.  
  
He felt the bed shift, heard Alfred move toward him and then there was a hand, warm against his right hip, moving slowly up his side as the larger body of the American slid up next to him. He felt the press of warm skin, heated breath on his shoulder and the touch of lips before Alfred hummed.  
  
“S'research, right?” Alfred murmured, pushing at Arthur's shoulder and side, urging him to turn over. Arthur resisted for only a couple moments before he grudgingly turned to face the American. Alfred scooted closer to him. “Tonight, I'll take you out and then we can come back and have sex on the couch like in your book.”  
  
Arthur frowned into the duvet, not looking at Alfred.  
  
“Or we could have sex in the shower that I fixed for you,” Alfred continued, voice drowsy. “Or maybe you could tie me up, y'know, but right now we should definitely take a nap.”  
  
Arthur blushed, thought about that for a second, then quickly took Alfred's face in his hands and kissed him on the lips, hard. Then he rolled over and tucked his head deliberately into the pillow. When Alfred wrapped an arm around him, pulling Arthur's back into his chest, the Englishman allowed himself a smile, pacified for the moment by the images of a tied up American on his bed. Then something occurred to him.   
  
“Don't you have work?” Arthur asked.  
  
There was a whispered and despairing, “Oh, _shit_!” and then the abrupt loss of warmth along Arthur's back. The Englishman sat up and smirked as he slid off the bed, heading toward the desk where his laptop sat as the sounds Alfred frantically searching for his clothes met his ears. That suggestion though, the one where Alfred was tied up, had lodged firmly in his brain and Arthur popped his computer open as he returned to the bed, listening to it start up as his mind went to work.  
  
“Shirt, check!”  
  
An innocent American repairman caught in the clutches of a porn-writing evil mastermind, tied to a bed in the dark, quiet recesses of the villain's lair, pleasured to the point of breaking in order to further the evil Englishman's plot to take over the world one smutty dime store novel at a time.  
  
“Pants, che-! Wait, boxers, boxers...oh, fuck it!”  
  
He would have to conduct research, of course. He'd never delved into the world of bondage before, not even in his fantasies. Which, quite honestly, made him think he'd been sorely missing out on wildly sexy daydreams, if his growing, ah, _interest_ was anything to go by. But the evil mastermind plotting to take over the world bit? He could probably handle that.  
  
“Okay, okay,” Alfred said, pausing for a split second. Then he shouted, “See ya later, babe!” as he shot out the door of Arthur's bedroom. Arthur glanced up, listened idly to the rapid stomp of running footsteps as they came to an abrupt halt, turned and started back up coming the opposite direction. Arthur raised an eyebrow when Alfred came racing back into the room, jumped onto the bed and bounced over to kiss him solidly on the mouth.  
  
Then he rolled off the bed comically, jumped up and made for the door. “Get off at five, pick you up at seven!” came his shout as he took off down the hallway again. Arthur listened as he made it to the stairs this time, took the last four or five at a jump and landed with a _thump_. Then Arthur glanced over to where the American's boxers still lay on his floor, under the desk where Arthur had kicked them. He turned back to his computer and pulled up another new document.  
  
He suddenly had the urge to write about an underwear model.   
  
Oh, the fun he could have with runways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it!


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